Star Trek: A Knights Gambit

Chapters

Chapter 2.
Chapter 3.
Chapter 4.
Chapter 5.
Chapter 6.
Chapter 7.
Chapter 8
Chapter 9.
Chapter 10.
Chapter 11.
Chapter 12.
Chapter 1.

Chapter 2.

Princess Celestia stands there for a long time, looking at the human that has presented himself before her. She examines the furless creature, attempting to understand the expression on his face beyond that it may be a smile. She briefly considers calling for the guard as protocol would dictate again before dismissing the thought. His clothing is fairly form fitting, though somewhat flat in color, and she seriously doubts that any sort of large weapon could be secreted away, magical ability on the other hand is still at question. She puts down her hoof and clears her throat. “By in danger, I would hazard a guess that the threat is not from you.”

She notes that, for a moment at least, he looks vastly uncomfortable before he covers his emotions, that gets her ears to flick. She gestures to the small table. “Please, have a seat.” She turns around and heads towards the door of her suite. Her magic chimes as she opens the door.

“Is anything amiss, Princess?” One of the two guards stationed outside her door asks.

“Oh, no. I would like tea for two, I think a nice Valerian blend will do, no service is required, simply knock on the door when the cart arrives. I will handle the service myself.” Looking to the second guard, “And when Twilight Sparkle arrives, let her in immediately.”

“As you command.” The guard gives a quick salute before turning to head down the hall to the kitchen, the second guard closing the door before returning to his position.

She turns and walks back to the small writing desk in her sitting room. In only moments she has dispatched a small piece of parchment, it disappearing in a flash of fire. The kitchens are efficient as always, and it only requires a few minutes of waiting before there is a quick knock at the door. Celestia doesn’t even step towards the door, merely glancing at it, her horn lighting, as she opens it and pulls the wheeled cart towards her.

“Thank you, you may collect the cart from the hall, in the morning,” She nods thanks to the steward as she closes the door and pulls the cart behind her into her bedchambers.

Picard is sitting on a cushion, though his legs are crossed to easily fit under the table which is rather small compared to his frame. He moves to get up but is stopped by a look from her. Her magic pulls the steaming teapot from the cart and sets it on the table, two cups and saucers fly over, one landing before him gently.

He leans forward. “I apologize, I am not used to being served tea by royalty, Princess. May I at least pour?” He reaches out at her nod while she puts the milk and sugar on the table. He pours the two cups and looks at the sugar then at her questioningly. He spoons sugar into her cup and pushes it towards her. She takes her own spoon and stirs the tea. She settles onto her own cushion regally and takes a sip of her tea.

“Given the fact you appeared in my bedchambers, despite there being a specific ward to prevent teleportation. And you came at night, which I don’t think would be within typical diplomatic protocol. Unless of course it is normal for your species to appear in a strange mare’s bedroom at night.” She looks at him. “Given that, I would guess there is an urgency or time requirement for this, that you did not wish to present yourself to the ponies en mass, and that you studied us at least in part. Would you mind explaining what exactly is going on?”

Picard nods and starts to talk. As he explains, she finds herself fascinated by the translation system on his chest, she has no idea if the voice she’s hearing is his own, or some magically created artificial voice. But she listens intently as he explains.

“You surely must see my dilemma, I have a populated member world in danger, with a population of billions. That danger is from your world. I must act, but the fact there is life here, civilization, makes my job much harder.”

She sets down her half empty cup. “And likely the damage would be twofold, the damage to your Betazed and my world would also be gravely affected by coming so close to this planet.” At his nod, she continues. “And you feel the only viable way to save the most lives would be to move the population of my world, which numbers in the tens of millions between the ponies, griffons, hippogrifs, minotaurs, yaks, dragons and other species on my world.”

He nods, getting her to sit back. “With one ship? It must be huge to accommodate such a mission.”

He frowns, she’s starting to understand more of his facial expressions, no ears to watch, no wings to notice uncomfortable shifting. “I have sent a message to my people, asking for whatever ships available to assist. Sadly, we only have a matter of weeks before this system is physically a danger. Even with every Federation flagged ship and any private ships along with any allies, we would be able to transport a lot of life from this world and get them safely to a similar class planet. There are a few within reasonable journey time, though the time frames involved would necessitate one, perhaps two trips per ship, space is vast, and travel through it takes time.”

Her ears splay back. “So, no matter what, you will have to act. What would you do?”

Again, he looks vastly uncomfortable. “We have weapons on board the ships, we would have to break up your world and use tractor beams to shift the orbits. In the end, this world would become a new asteroid field outside the orbit of Betazed.” He looks down. “I’m sorry, Princess, I don’t see any other way, but I must act to preserve the most life I can.”

“And condemn millions to their deaths. Not just the sentient life, but all life on this world.”

He nods. “We are working, Princess, to find other ways to mitigate this problem. But if all other efforts fail, we must act to save lives wherever possible. The only alternative is the death of millions on this world, and several billion on Betazed, the projections show the gravity shear would be enough to crack the crust of the planet, causing a definite worldwide extinction event, some life might survive, but the death toll would be catastrophic.”

“With them being a member of your Federation of Planets, there is a definite political component to this as well.”
He nods. “While that is true, our number one priority in this matter is the preservation of as much life as possible. I am the first to say politics be damned in many instances. But in this case, your planet has less to lose. Your planet is in motion, your planet would need to be stopped in any case.”

She nods as she sips her tea, thinking furiously. Her eyes widen as the main door to her suite is opened. “Princess?” A soft voice with more than a little panic in it intones.

“In my bedchambers, my faithful student.” She calls out. Picard gets to his feet as the sound of the clopping of hooves announces the arrival of seven ponies and a baby dragon. All of them stop as they see the human sitting there.

The one in the lead, a lavender alicorn, stops and looks at Celestia. “What is going on here?”

Picard steps forward, "My name, is Captain Jean Luc Picard, you may find this hard to believe but..."

Pinkie Pie starts pronking on the spot, "Oh, oh, oh, I know this one, You're a human Captain of a large starship currently in orbit around our planet. You're a representative of a multi-planet federation and are here to avert a massive disaster."

All eyes fall on Pinkie blinking, "Pinkie let him talk." Twilight says, leaning over towards her friend.

"Tarnation, how did you get all of that?”

"It's been two weeks since we had to save the world, it was obvious." Pinkie says giving one of her huge smiles.

Celestia smiles at her. “Why yes, Pinkie Pie, you have a good grasp of things. Though he has been explaining this problem to me, and I wish for you to hear as well.” She looks at the Captain. “Would you like to explain again? Or shall I tell her?”

Picard is able to muster a smile once again, glancing at the pink pony bouncing in place. “I would be happy to, this situation is grave enough that I would explain until I’m blue in the face.” He launches into the explanation once again. He could see, though, that this other alicorn isn’t as schooled in the nuances of politics as Celestia is. More than once, her wings flare in surprise, and her facial expressions tell him what she is thinking almost as well as if Deanna were next to him, though the news is grave enough that even the pink one is looking somber by the end of the explanation.

Finally he winds down, Celestia clears her throat. “First off, Captain, I had Twilight and her friends come here because any solution to this problem will likely come from her.” She smiles at her protégé before continuing. “I am also bringing them into the fold, so to speak, when it comes to this problem. You see, Captain. So long as there is a sentient being on this world, I will not leave.”

Picard starts to sputter, but Celestia holds out a hoof. “There is no compromise on this, Captain, either we all go, or we are all saved. My fate will be that of the rest of Equestria and the surrounding nations. I will assist wherever possible. In the morning, I will summon every ambassador that I can, and will explain there is a serious problem. But unless every sentient is brought off this world, I will not be leaving myself.”

“But Princess.” Twilight says, her voice shaking. “If what he says is true, there is no way they can bring enough ships to pull every last sentient off this planet.”

“I know, my dear student. But my fate will be the same as theirs. I cannot call myself the Crown Princess of Equestria without being willing to make hard decisions like this.” She looks over at the human, her gaze penetrating his very soul. “Captain Picard, I would hope that you and your crew are working diligently to avert this catastrophe without loss of life.”

Picard swallows. “Of course, Princess. My crew will be working around the clock, though we have sent messages, as I’ve told you. And ships should start arriving within a few days to start the process. Would it be permissible for some of your population to be among the first to go on those ships?”

Princess Celestia inclines her head. “I will make notifications, and anypony who wishes to help establish a colony on a nearby world will be welcomed and your first ships can make their voyages and work to build the infrastructure of a new place for the ponies to live. Shall I have some sort of landing area prepared, for your ship to land to take on passengers?”

That gets a smile from Picard. “We can use transporters and bring the ponies up that way. Though the Enterprise will not initially be performing the evacuation. If necessary, we will do so, but as it is, we need to gather up as much information as we can, we may also try to perform experiments, to see what is viable. But have no doubt, the Enterprise will be doing her part in this.”

Celestia nods. “Then I shall leave you be, it has been a long day for me, and I must get some sleep.”

Picard nods and looks at the assembled ponies. “Since it is night here, I am now extending an invitation for you all to join me and visit the Enterprise, we can send down away teams once the sun rises.”

Celestia is standing by her bed. “Captain, I would like you to join those away teams, I want you to see as much of our world as you can, so you know the stakes involved.”

“I assure you Princess, I am quite aware. But I will be visiting, I am utterly fascinated by your planet.”

That gets a smile from the Princess as he gestures for the other ponies and the small dragon to gather around him. He takes off his com badge. “Picard to Enterprise, lock onto my location and nine to beam up. Leave the communicator behind. If Celestia needs to reach me, she can use it.” He turns and places the device on the table before standing tall. “Energize.”

Celestia watches as her student and her friends, along with the Captain, dematerialize.

***

As the transporter effect fades, the ponies and the dragon all look around.

“Well, it doesn’t look all that big.” Rarity says.

Pinkie Pie bounces over to O’Brien. “Oh oh oh! That was the craziest thing I’ve ever done!”

The transporter operator looks at the Captain helplessly as the pink pony bounces up and down before his control panel. He steps to the side, putting his body between her and the panel. “Please, don’t touch.”

Picard leads them from the transporter room and down the corridor. Shortly he stops at a turbolift door. He turns back. “It might be a bit crowded.” Though two of the ponies, a light blue one with a shocking rainbow mane, as well as a yellow pegasus with a pink mane, are floating above the others, their wings beating slowly. He allows the rest to precede him into the lift before crowding in behind them. Twilight, as well, takes to the air, giving the other four enough floor space to join Picard. “Bridge.” He says as the doors close. The lift starts to go sideways, though its own inertial dampening prevents even the fliers from being slammed into the wall. Picard briefly wonders how it works. Given their size, there is no way their wings could produce enough lift. Though with three of them flying in such a small space, he would expect the air moved by their wings would produce a significant amount of turbulence. But he barely notices any air movement as the lift stops and shifts to vertical movement. In only moments the lift opens up to the bridge. The ponies follow him out of the lift, the rest of the crew is staying professional and focusing on their workstations, Will Riker walks around from the command area.

“Good day, I’m William Riker.” He says, looking at the lavender alicorn.

She ducks her head shyly. “I’m Twilight Sparkle, these are my friends.” She points at each pony as she names them. “This is Spike, Rainbow Dash, Starlight Glimmer, Rarity, Applejack, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie.”

Riker smiles genially. “What colorful names.” He looks up at Picard. “We are holding orbit, though the proto-sun seems to have a will of its own, nearly all active scans are simply being reflected. We’ve pretty much learned nothing about it while you’ve been planetside.”

Picard nods. “Thank you, Number One.” He looks around. “Where is Commander Data?”

“Astrometrics, with Geordie, they are trying to figure out this little pocket of the universe as best they can.”

Picard turns to the ponies, who have clumped together, all of them looking curious and more than a little scared. “This is the main bridge of the starship, where most of the operations of the ship are handled. I will be heading to Astrometrics to help with our efforts here. Will, would you continue to escort the ponies around the ship, show them what is going on, and how we are trying to figure out how to save their world?”

“I would be glad to, Captain.”

“Captain?” Twilight Sparkle speaks up. “May I join you? I’m not the student of astronomy that Princess Luna is, but I have some knowledge in that regard.”

He nods, gesturing for the alicorn to follow him back onto the turbolift. Will stops as he watches the captain and the pony disappear into the lift, then he looks down at the ponies and small dragon standing before him. He’s given basic tours of the ship to various dignitaries many times over the years, but this is the first time the dignitaries barely reached his waist in height, and were all quadrupeds. He clears his throat nervously. “Well, since you’ve seen the bridge, let us start by heading this way, into the observation lounge.”

***

Twilight stands next to the human captain in the little room they called a turbolift. She knows of lifts, usually in tall buildings to make it easier to get between floors, but this one, after dropping several levels, has shifted to go sideways. She briefly lights her horn, just to feel around, and confirms that, yes, the lift is travelling sideways. She looks up at the Captain. “How am I not feeling the acceleration? We are moving quite quickly.”

Picard smiles down at her. “Starships have inertial compensation. Sensors determine acceleration and produce a gravity field directly opposite of that acceleration to cancel it out. It’s not perfect, but it does protect the crew. The turbolift has its own system, for the safety and comfort of those onboard.”

“Generate a gravity field?” She narrows her eyes. “I know spells to generate gravity effects, but they are really advanced…” Her eyes widen. “And you have machines do this, automatically?”

He nods. “Our technology is quite a bit different than what you are accustomed to, Princess.”

“Just Twilight, please.”

He looks at her for a long moment. “As you wish, Twilight.”

“I mean, you are working hard to save my world, I would think we should be on a familiar basis.”

He smiles. “That is true.”

She taps the floor. “So you have faster than light travel, you have magical gravity built into your ships, weapons powerful enough to carve a planet into pieces. Ponies have airship travel and are barely mastering electricity.” She frowns. “If this weren’t such an emergency, wouldn’t you be afraid that your technology might hurt another civilization that wouldn’t be ready for such things?”

Picard looks at the pony princess standing next to him. “In fact we have very strict rules regarding different societies and their technological advancement. It is called our prime directive, it mandates us to leave developing cultures alone until they discover faster than light travel. Had circumstances been different, we would observe you, for months if not years, before anything else, watching to see if you would make the leap to the stars. Only when your kind would have discovered how to bend space and time, then we would have initiated first contact, and gotten to know your leaders and your citizens.”

She looks up at him. “So, because of where my system is going, that is why we meet?”

He nods. “If it weren’t a life or death emergency, I would not have waived the requirements of the Prime Directive.”

The door opens and Twilight follows Picard down the corridor. She looks around at the various crew members walking around. More than one gasp reaches her ears, along with quite a few crew members stopping what they are doing to see her. She nudges closer to Picard. “Why are they surprised? I would think you see aliens regularly in your line of work.”

He guides her through a doorway and stops in the small antechamber. “In our experience, quadrupeds such as yourselves, don’t achieve sapience, much less tool use and other requirements that lead to spacefaring. Your species, in fact, your whole planet is quite unusual by our standards.”

She scoffs. “How can that be?”

“Most, but not all, planets end up with one sapient species, they dominate the other species, and those that are threats to them end up going extinct. Add in the fact that equines such as yourself, are typically prey. Which is also another strike against becoming sapient, though there are exceptions, for example, the Denobulans. But with all of that, Miss Twilight, your species is quite unusual in your success on your world.”

“Something that might be destroyed in a matter of a few weeks.” She says softly.

He gestures for a larger door to open, she walks in and stops, sitting down quickly. He steps up next to her. “Breathtaking isn’t it?”

A large catwalk extends into the center of the large spherical chamber. Computer controls and a couple of seats are set up at that center station. Two are standing there, a pale human looking creature, but something is off to her about his movements, and a dark skinned human, who is wearing some sort of device on his face. Picard steps forward to his crewmembers. “Princess Twilight Sparkle, this is my chief engineer, Geordi LaForge, and my chief of operations, Lieutenant Commander Data.”

Twilight offers a hoof, and the dark skinned human shakes it. The pale one called Data comes up next to him and also shakes the pony’s hoof.

“Okay, this whole evening has been an absolute whirlwind.” Her horn lights for a moment, then she gasps. “You aren’t even alive.” Her eyes are glued to the operations officer.

“You are correct, I am not biologically alive, I am an artificial life form, an android.”

Twilight shakes her head as though a gnat is buzzing around her ear. “And are you a half android?” She looks at Geordi.

That gets a short bark of a laugh from the chief engineer. “No, I’m blind, I use this device.” He touches the VISOR on his face, “So I can see. With it, my vision is different than how humans see, but I can see a lot of things you cannot.”

Twilight drums her hooves on the floor quickly. “If I wasn’t so overwhelmed, I would be wanting to take you apart to see how you work.” She looks over at Geordi. “And I would love to see how that works, and also what can be done about your eyes, why your natural ones don’t work anymore.” She stops, sinking her front half to the deck. “I’m just…I don’t know. This has been an utter shock of an evening.”

Picard kneels down, putting a hand on her withers. “Princess, if you need to rest, I can show you to some quarters.”

She shrugs his hand off. “Saving my home is more important than anything, Captain.” She claps her forehooves together. “Alright, let’s see what we have to work with here.”

***

Commander William Thomas Riker has given starship tours to dignitaries dozens of times as first officer of the Enterprise. But right now, he’s seriously considering to never do that again. The pink pony, Pinkie Pie, has both impressed him, and has been driving him nuts with her outbursts. If he didn’t know better, he would think he were in a cartoon, since she’s fit her body in impossibly small confines, and has done other things which he would have said was completely impossible.

He keeps the diplomatic smile on his face as he passes through the doorway. “This is our ten-forward compartment. This is a lounge for when crew members are off shift, to allow them a communal space to converse and enjoy food.”

The white unicorn, Rarity, walks up next to him, then she slowly walks to the massive windows in the front of the compartment. “That is our world? Our home, from orbit?”

He nodded. She gazed out at the blue, green, and white orb seemingly hanging motionless before them. Her tail waving, she seems absolutely mesmerized by the view. One by one, the other ponies crowd over to the many viewports in the front of the compartment.

“So, these are our guests?” Comes a new voice, getting every pony to turn and look at the dark skinned humanoid in flowing robes and large hat.

“This is Guinan, she runs ten forward.” Riker said with a gesture.

Rarity walked up to her. “On our tour, I’ve seen so many different aliens, and now another hoomon.” She sticks her tongue out a bit at the odd word to her. “And even among hoomons, you have a rather narrow coloring scheme, going from very pale, to as dark as you are.” She cocked her head to the side. “But I must say, your garments are absolutely beautiful. Have you considered some diamonds or other gems along the hemline? I think it would set off from that beautiful skin color you have and really shine.”

Riker has very rarely seen Guinan flush, but the bartender flushes a bit with a shy smile. “Why thank you, my dear. But I’m not human.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything.” Rarity sputtered.

Will comes to the white pony’s rescue. “Not all humanoids are human, Miss Rarity. Guinan here is a long time friend of Captain Picard.

“You seem to be looking at me a lot?” Pinkie pie said softly, her ears cocked to the side.

Guinan shook her head. “I’m sorry, but there’s something about you…” She sighed. “I’m sorry, was not trying to be rude.”

The pale pink pony with the multicolored purple mane stepped closer to Riker. “While I do appreciate the tour of the ship, and getting to see all that you hoomans have made. I would like to know more about what is being done to save our world. I know Twilight Sparkle is off starting on this mission. But we all are here to help.” Her horn starts to glow. “Can you help me learn the basics of how your computer systems work? You’ve mentioned the main computer of this ship many times. How do I use it? Research what is necessary?” She glanced at the other ponies around. “Please, Mr. Riker. This is our home, we want to help.”

Riker glances between the ponies before nodding. “While I’ve been conducting this tour, we have been working on one of our science labs to give you as much access as you would need to learn as much as possible. We will also be showing you a couple of candidate worlds that we would work to relocate as many as we can from your home.”

Starlight Glimmer stamps a hoof on the carpeted deck. “I do appreciate the idea of moving our population. But we all know that even a ship this size cannot move enough. My goal, and the goal of everypony here is to make sure we save our world.” She looks around. “Both worlds. Who would I talk to, to send me back to Canterlot for a short time so I can get magical reference materials? Perhaps we can find a way, using your technology and our magic, to fix this horrible problem.”

That gets a smile from Riker. “I will take you to the lab, let you meet your liaison, his name is Reginald, and he will get your friends settled to start work. Then I will go with you, help you pick up what you need, sound good?”

She nodded. “Thank you, Mister Riker.”

“Call me Will.”

Chapter 3.

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 4.

Captain Picard looks around as the transporter released him. The chamber was not well lit, though he could see well enough as his eyes adjust. It is a large octagonal room, made from huge white and clear crystal. Tunnels ran out from the main chamber wall in eight different directions. In the center of the room is a series of five steps which led up to a central pedestal. A large crystal floats, suspended in some kind of energy field, glowing brightly. Several crystals around the chamber resonated the glow, providing a dim light which is the only source of illumination. The alicorn of the moon stood in front of the crystal, head low, her wings drooped limply by her side.

“Princess Luna?”

Stiffening, Luna spins on the spot. “What are YOU doing here? Did I not say I would handle this?!”

Walking forward, Picard looked around the chamber. Its size and the size of the crystals dwarf him. Looking back to the princess, he nods. “We have some new information.”

“This place is private!”

Looking around slowly, Picard smiles. “It truly is amazing. The crystals here are breathtaking.”

“That… Is not why it is private,” Luna says, turning away from him, her face glowing in a blush.

“Princess, my staff thinks it might be possible to use the energy field to save the planet, to save both planets.” Picard says, then walks forward slowly, “I wouldn’t intrude otherwise.”

“A thousand years,” Luna says softly.

“Pardon?”

“I spent one thousand years trapped here, imprisoned here, in this very chamber, walking these very halls. A thousand years of anger, of hate, of rage.”

Picard blinks as he digests this information. “This place is a source of pain for you?”

“Yes! No! Yes!” She sighs deeply. “It’s complicated. I was sealed in here, I couldn’t teleport away, I couldn’t escape, no matter what I did. But all I wanted to do was exact my revenge. I was trapped in body. And in mind, all I could feel was rage but it wasn’t my own. For that time, I didn’t contemplate the reasons I was trapped here. Why I needed to be sealed away from the ponies. Celestia was right, I was a danger. But it took Twilight Sparkle and her friends to remind me.”

“Remind?” Picard said, walking up to her slowly.

“What it meant to care for our ponies. What I was supposed to protect. To show me what it means to be a Princess again, that it wasn’t about power, it wasn’t about adoration, but about service, about duty.” Lowering her head more, “I betrayed so many, I risked so many, but I couldn’t stop myself.

This is merely a control point. The crystal that powers our barrier is beneath us, and it far larger than your starship, it goes nearly all the way through our moon.”

She stands there for a long time, silently contemplating. Picard slowly moves up beside her, watching her ears, her body before speaking softly, “Some years ago, we encountered a species called the Borg. They are a combination of humanoid and artificial life. They are a force of nature, that can not be reasoned with, nor be negotiated with. They came for the Federation, to enslave and convert all life forms to serve them.”

Luna looks up at Picard, flicking an ear.

“In the course of our encounter with them, one of them beamed aboard right next to me and transported me to their ship.” His voice goes flat as he continues. “They implanted devices throughout my body. They stripped away my individuality, my humanity, my will, everything was washed away in favor of their linked hive mind. They took everything that made me who I am.”

Luna nods slowly, both ears focused on the human.

“My knowledge, my experience, my intelligence was used to serve them. It was used against my crew, against the Federation. We had a plan that should have destroyed their ship.” He stopped and sighed. “They were able to counter that plan with my help. They were able to withstand everything the Federation could throw at them. I became Locutus of Borg, and no amount of screaming in my head could stop me from helping the Borg. There was nothing I could do to stop them from dismantling our fleet at Wolf 359. Thirty-nine starships destroyed, eleven thousand two hundred thirty people dead.” Clenching a fist, he took a deep breath before he looked up, the blame and guilt evident to Luna. “If it weren’t for my crew, their faith in me, their strength and power of will. Locutus of Borg would have taken Earth. All of Earth would have been turned into Borg, then the rest of the quadrant.”

“How,” Luna starts before lowering her voice more, almost meekly, “how did they stop them?”

“They raided the ship, were able to sneak onboard the ship, they stole me away from the Borg. Though with all of their machines inside me, I was still Locutus, I was still Borg. I still wanted them all turned, to join in the Borg perfection. They pierced through, they never stopped believing in me, and they were able to find the smallest sliver of me, of my individuality, that was left. Then they used that access to shut down the Borg ship, knock it out and save my people, save the entire Federation.”

Luna smiles softly. “I see examples all the time, friendship truly is magic.”

Picard nods. “You are quite accurate there.” He holds out a hand. “I offer my hand, I offer myself, as your friend. I pledge to do everything within my power to save your world.”

Luna looks at the outstretched hand for a long moment before taking a step forward and extending a hoof. He takes her hoof gently in his hand and holds it for a long time. Looking into Luna’s eyes. Finally she smiles and pulls away. “I thank thee. Now we shall see what to do about this barrier. I was prepared to do damage, to break the crystal, I do not see there being an ability to fully dissipate the field here.” Her horn lights. “But if this barrier, what happens in my moon, can be used to end this threat to your world and mine, I believe I can adjust the size and intensity of the barrier.” She closes her eyes as somehow the hornglow melds with the control crystal. There is silence for several minutes as the alicorn concentrates.

Picard pulls out his tricorder, and again is frustrated as the device refuses to see any of the obvious magic going on in front of him. He steps closer to Princess Luna as she works. There doesn’t seem to be any obvious control panel or the like, just the crystal. He looks over at her, her jaw is clenched, her entire body is tense. Though it amazes him that these alien ponies have such similar body language to horses of his home world. Just looking at her, he can see she is putting all of her effort into whatever she is doing. He distantly wishes he could assist her in her endeavor, but without access to their magic, he’s forced to simply be an observer.

As she relaxes, his combadge chirps. He taps it. “Captain.” Worf’s voice comes through.

“The barrier?”

“Yes, sir. It has shrunk, it was originally in excess of twenty-one AU’s, it’s now just over one.”

Picard grins as a sweat covered Luna smiles at him. “Yes, Mr. Worf. I was successful.” She leans over and rests her head on his shoulder. “I’m quite spent. It will be a few hours before I can return home. Princess, I would be happy to offer the services of my ship to return you back to Canterlot.”

She stands there, panting softly. She glances at the communicator on his chest and then looks him in the eyes. “I humbly accept your offer.”

“Mr. Worf, alert the transporter room, two to beam up.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Energize.”

The transporter chimes at it takes the two figures from the underground chamber.

***

Twilight Sparkle perks up as the sound of the transporter greets her ears, Picard and Luna forming before them. She gets a wan smile from the alicorn of the night.

“Dear sister!” Celestia says before bounding over to her sister and nuzzling her happily. After a long moment she looks at Picard. “I could feel her effort from here. I take it you two were successful?”

Luna nods. “We have bought, at great effort, some weeks of time for both our worlds. Now the Enterprise crew needs to see what makes this world worth saving.”

Picard starts. “I assure you, I assure you both, we are very much aware of the gravity of the situation.”

Celestia stamps a hoof on the marble of the palace floor. “There is knowing. Captain, and there is experiencing. I am asking you, please, let as many of your crew visit as want to. The ponies will accept them, get to know them. Make friends with them. In the event your efforts fail, your crew will know what was lost. What you were forced to destroy to prevent a greater loss of life. The ponies that migrated will remember, but please, let your crew see and feel what Equestria has to offer.” She smiles. “So long as such visiting doesn’t interfere with their duties.”

“There are over a thousand souls aboard, children, families.”

Celestia brightens. “You bring your young with you on voyages?”

“They are not my children.” Picard says. “However, yes, there are families aboard, it is, and has been Starfleet policy that families are allowed to live on starships. Exploration starships can spend a significant amount of time away from home. We’ve only charted about a sixteen percent of our galaxy. Our ship, and her sister ships, are intended to expand the bounds of human knowledge.”

Luna flinches. “Wait a moment, those ships you were talking about, those?”

Picard grimaces and nods, getting a deep sigh from Luna. “How noble.” Celestia glances at her sister then at Twilight. “I would love to meet human children if you could arrange it.”

Picard nods. “It most likely will not be today, but in the next few days, I will ensure that more of the crew will visit, including our younger members.

“Thank you, Captain Picard. But for now. I would like to introduce you to the pony that will be on one of your first colony ships to this new world.” Her horn lights. “Come on out.” She calls loudly as the door into the throne room opens.

In walks a stallion, pure white with a blonde mane and a compass star as the mark on his flank. “You summoned me, Auntie?”

Celestia focuses on Picard. “Prince Blueblood will be in charge, though there are some other nobles who have decided it was in their best interests to make this voyage. You have promised that our colony will be supported, no matter the outcome for our world.”

The white stallion walks to stand before Picard. “I am at your service.” He says softly.

Picard glances at Celestia before formally bowing before the unicorn. “The first colony ship will be arriving within a few hours.” He looks again at Celestia. “Every colony ship is being mobilized, not just for your world. but Betazed is also working on evacuation in case our actions prove to be futile. As I have said before, we need to go over the candidate worlds to see what would be most compatible.”

Celestia nods. “You can go over it with Blueblood here, since he will be moving there, I would think he would want a say in deciding where he and those that choose to leave with him will end up.”

Data brightens. “I can present the list of planets for you Captain.”

Picard nods and Data leads the stallion out of the throne room. Celestia giggles and leans towards the human captain. “I’ve been looking for an excuse to get rid of him for years.”

Picard frowns. “You know that you will need capable leaders…”

She waves a wing. “Oh, don’t worry about that, Princess Luna will be among the last to leave, and I’ve communicated with Princess Cadance, her family will be relocating among the earliest ships. Blueblood will simply be a…” She taps her chin for a moment then brightens. “A figurehead, as much as an ass he tends to be, the ponies of Canterlot do tend to look up to him.”

Picard nods, then he tilts his head slightly. “You talk about Princess Cadance, is she like that Blueblood? A Princess without the wings and horn together?”

Celestia shakes her head. “Oh, no. She and her daughter are both alicorns.”

Picard frowns. “There are two more of you? When we scanned your world, we only found three alicorns, you, Luna, and Twilight.”

“There are five of us, Captain. Flurry Heart and her mother Cadance. They currently reside in the Crystal Empire, which is to the north of Equestria, in the cold north.” She lights her horn and before them a representation of the world appears. She points at the Crystal Empire on the glowing globe.

He leans closer. “This is more detailed than many of our holograms.” He watches as the globe rotates slowly. “Right here?” At her nod he inspects the area, watching in fascination as Celestia zooms up the view of the Crystal Empire and brings the Castle into greater detail.

“Within the Crystal Castle is the Crystal Heart, which is the source of life and love for the Crystal Empire, and its effects are felt all throughout our world.”

Picard nods. “Thank you, Princess. I shall return to my ship.” She nods as he taps his combadge. “Picard to Enterprise.”

“Go ahead, Captain.”

“One to beam up.”

“Copy, energizing.”

It’s only a matter of seconds until the familiar face of Miles Obrien is smiling at him. “Welcome aboard, Captain.”

Picard barely notices, though he nods in response before exiting the transporter room. A quick walk has him in the turbolift heading to the bridge. As the doors open he takes a few step onto his bridge. His ears register the normal sounds of his crew, the soft sounds of the air handling systems, the sounds of the computer being worked on, then something else impinges on his thoughts. Childish laughter. He looks around. “Commander Riker.”

Riker walks over and Picard leans close. “There are children, foals, on my bridge.”

Riker’s throat works. “They are related to those that came up first. They are called the Elements, which seems to make them national heroes. Twilight and her friends. The white one is Rarity’s sister, the yellow is Applejack’s sister, and the orange one is sorta an adopted sister of Rainbow Dash.”

Picard sighs before shaking his head to clear his thoughts. “How many ponies are aboard right now?”

Riker’s face flushes. “We’ve been getting requests all evening.”

“How many, Number One?”

“Three hundred forty.” He holds out his hands to forestall Picard. “Many of them are going to be leaders of the new colony, or at least volunteers. We have crew working on teaching them about colonization procedures, and also making changes to the procedures to accommodate their rather unique requirements. The Cutie Mark Crusaders are personal guests requested by Princess Twilight.”

Picard sighs, “I’ll be in my ready room.”

As the door to his sanctuary closes, he sits at his deck and after a moment’s thought. He taps on the com pad. “Picard to LaForge.”

“YES!” Geordie responds sounding almost uncharacteristically stressed.

“Mr LaForge?”

“Sorry sir, I’ve been having intermittent headaches.” Geordie responds, “What do you need sir?”

Picard pinches the bridge of his nose looking down, “Do you need to go to sickbay?”

“No, sir, I can work through it.”

Picard sighs internally before speaking. “Good, you are aware of how our sensors seem to not be able to even detect the energy of the magic that the ponies possess?”

“Yes, sir. It’s no known energy.”

“We need to fix that,” Picard says firmly before he smiles slightly. He knows his chief engineer is suppressing the desire to sigh.

Finally, Geordie answers. “Aye, sir. We will get right on that.”

“Picard out.”

***

Geordi LaForge rubs his temple above his implant looking down at the mint green unicorn standing before him. His new directive from Captain Picard is an extremely tall order. Detect the undetectable. “Okay, Lyra. Let’s try to get more basic. How do you know when a pony is using their magic?”

She looks thoughtfully at him. Since Twilight Sparkle and Starlight Glimmer have been busy with everything else when it comes to saving their planet, he had asked Princess Celestia for her best magic specialists. Lyra Heartstrings was beamed up to the ship, Celestia had assured him that Lyra is one of the best magic generalists in her service, a graduate of the Gifted Unicorn School.

“It depends on the tribe, it’s hard to detect earth or pegasi magic without magic itself, but for the unicorns,” The unicorn lights her horn. “Well, typically, other ponies would be able to see the effects, usually through a lit horn and the aura of the pony affecting whatever we are working on.” Looking up at her own horn, “Aura color tends to be individual to each pony, though usually is the same as their eye color. Our magical senses mean we can feel the magic that other ponies are using, and for more advanced magic users, we can tell exactly what magic they are using by feel.” Her eyes are unfocused as she thinks. “It’s sort of instinctual, and useful so two unicorns don’t grab the same thing and start fighting over it without realizing it.”

Geordi wants to groan, she is really trying to be helpful, but everything keeps tending to go in circles. You need magic to detect magic. Rubbing his temples lightly in small circle he shakes his head.

Lyra is the one to end up groaning first, however. “It’s like trying to describe musical cords to somepony who can’t hear, or explain what pink is to the blind. All the while not being able to use the terms to describe it. Argh, I’d have an easier time describing what a feeling is, without using other feelings.”

Geordi tilts his head a bit. “Let me ask you this. Do you have any secure areas, where magic use is not permitted?”

She nods, “Of course.”

“And how is that enforced?”

“Signs usually,” She flips her mane, tilting her head to the side. “We put up signs that say magic use is not permitted.”

“And the ponies listen to that?”

She nods. “For the most part, sometimes accidents happen, where a pony tries to magically grab something out of force of habit. Though…” Her eyes go unfocused. Then she brightens. “I’m an idiot. Hold on a minute.” Her horn lights and she blinks out.

It’s only a matter of minutes before the mare appears right where she was before. “Whew, ok, having to account for your orbital motion is a chore.” She huffs. “Even with the focus, I had to have my teleport add several kilometers per second to my inertia.”

Geordi frowns, his mind working hard. “Wait a moment, you had to subtract your orbital speed when you teleported down to the planet?” She nods. “And then add that back in when you teleported back?” Again, she nods. “And what is the focus?”

“Oh, It’s just a point set up that I can feel with my magic, well, technically any strong enough magic user can feel it, and get a read on your ship to teleport up.”

“Wait a moment, any magic user strong enough?”

She nods. “Any unicorn who has enough strength could feel the focus and teleport up here. Twilight set it up in your transporter room, I just had to factor in the distance from that part of your saucer section to main engineering.”

Geordi sits there. “You do know, Lyra, that such calculations are actually quite advanced mathematically. Right?”

She giggles. “Trust me, I know. You would not believe the math they teach us in school. I still have nightmares about working out isometric decay rates.” She shrugs out of the saddle bags she had brought back with her. “Okay, when you were mentioning how we would enforce prohibitions on magic use in sensitive areas. I remembered a device we use, okay, some ponies use. When it’s active, it can sense when a magic user is using magic.” She points at the small crystal. Then she points at the metal box that the crystal is grafted onto. “And this sends out an audible warning when magic is used within a certain distance.”

“Princess Celestia, when she said she was sending up a unicorn to help, said you were among the strongest in her service. What service?”

“Mage corps, I’m a reservist actually. I could be a battlemage, but I opted to avoid active duty. My true love is music.”

His eyebrows rise. “Music? Yet you are a powerful mage?”

She nods. “Well, I’m not at the level of Twilight Sparkle before she ascended to become an alicorn, nor am I as powerful as Starlight Glimmer or Sunset Shimmer.” She smiles cutely. “But I can hold my own. Trust me, I was quite surprised when that scroll from Princess Celestia commanding me to teleport to the Enterprise appeared before me.” She shakes her head. “I would never refuse a request from my princess.”

“But music?”

She nods and hops off the chair, turning her side to Geordie, “A lyre is my cutie mark. I was born with strong mage abilities, and I trained those abilities in Princess Celestia’s school. But my love, my soul, is music.” She tilts her head a bit. “Perhaps I could play for you humans a little some time?”

He nods. “We always love new music and entertainment. I’ll talk to a few officers, and arrange a concert for you.”

“That would be wonderful! I haven’t played a concert in forever! Maybe I’ll get Vinyl and Octavia to come up and join me. Really give your crew a good time.”

Geordie smiles brightly at her before he picks up the device. His VISOR giving him microscopic readings of the crystalline structure. After a few minutes of inspection, he smiles at the green mare. “Lyra, you are amazing.”

She smiles brightly. “Naturally.” Then her smile falters. “For…what?”

He holds up the crystal. “This is a very complex crystal, but everything in it…we can replicate it. It’s not too complex for the computer to scan. Follow me.” He strides from engineering, the unicorn in his wake. After a few moments he’s in a computer science lab, placing the device on the scanner bed. “Okay, let’s see what we see. Computer.”

The computer chimes out its acknowledgment signal. He looks at the crystal. “Focus on the crystal in the scanner. Is the structure repeatable with the replicator?”

There are several moments as the scanner bed lights up and the system works. Finally, the computer chirps. “Affirmative. The entire crystal structure is a repeating lattice of carbon, molybdenum, iron, aluminum, dilithium, astatine, and ytterbium, with trace amount of gallium, uranium, and lawrencium.

“Lawrencium? How can that be? It can only be created by subatomic particle streams, its decay rate should only be minutes?” Geordie looks close at the crystal again with his VISOR and shakes his head.

“Affirmative, it should take 1.036 minutes for all present lawrencium to decay.” The computer responds.

“Well that…” He grins, looking at Lyra. “Okay, now the real test, since our sensors can’t detect magic, let’s see if it can look for voids where something magical would be. Computer, analyze the crystal structure, I have two query’s, is this specific structure something known? And is there any parts of the lattice that have unexplained voids that the sensors cannot detect.”

“Working.” After several seconds, the computer chirps again. “The specific chemistry and lattice structure is unknown to Federation Science. And there are no observed voids.”

Geordi claps his hands sharply. “Okay, now we are getting somewhere. Computer, access the industrial replicator in this room, I want a new tricorder, but within the sensor package, I want a high bandwidth sensor made out of this crystal, embedding the necessary micro-circuitry to use the crystal. Also access the magical textbooks just scanned in, so we can measure thaumic energy via this new sensor circuit.”

“Working.” The computer says primly. After a few moments of work. The replicator hums and a new tricorder materializes slowly. He watches as the system builds the device, finally it’s done and the replicator powers down. He hesitantly reached out and picks up the tricorder. He opens the device, powering it on and noting a few new buttons and some extra spaces on the display. He smiles at Lyra. “Okay, Lyra. Pick something up with your magic.”

She looks at him for a long moment, finally lighting her horn and picks up the crystal.

Geordi lets out a whoop. “You are exerting point zero two thaums of magical power. And I can see the shape of the field you are creating!”

She sets down the crystal. “So what does that mean?”

“That means, this tricorder can sense your magic, not only is it detecting what you are doing with the magic, but also can detect the field you are creating with your horn.”

Lyra smiles. “So, it’s taking the information from the crystal and is able to detect what is going on?”

He nods and she frowns. “Okay, that’s good for that device. But how is your ship going to be able to use that.”

He grins. “I’m going to have to replicate some sensor systems, and it will be a bit to integrate this with the subspace sensors, but once I get them installed in the lateral arrays and the long range systems. We will be able to detect your magic.”

“The lateral arrays?”

He nods. “Well, that means I’m going to have to go EVA.” He looks at her with a big smile. “But some of my engineers will be working in deflector control, installing equipment in the long-range sensor array as well. But give me six hours, and we will be a step closer to saving your world.”

***

Apple Bloom has been having a wonderful time on the starship. She had persuaded the curly headed human in their transporter room to contact and beam up a couple more cutie mark crusaders, Gabby and Babs so they can join her in exploring the huge starship. The officer assigned to escort the Cutie Mark Crusaders is a species called Andorian. She has a willowy thin body as well as white hair and two antennae sticking up out of her unruly mop of hair. Apple Bloom thinks the blue skinned alien is absolutely adorable, better looking than the humans in her estimation. She walks over to the Andorian. “Holly, we are hungry, do we have to go back to the planet to get food? Or is there food we can eat here?”

Lieutenant JG Ejholli Sh’rhothriss or simply Holly to these adorable quadrupeds smiles brightly. “Of course we have food on board a starship. And based on the scans, most of what we eat is compatible with your dietary needs.” She stops for a moment. “But remember, many species on board a starship are omnivores. So, check with the computer to see if there is animal proteins in your meal.”

Scootaloo perks up. “Do you have fish? Or maybe chicken?” That also gets Gabby to perk up happily.

Holly nods. “The replicator can synthesize pretty much anything your little heart’s desire.” She frowns at the reaction of one of the ponies, Apple Bloom, her ears flatten and she takes a step back.

“It’s okay, Apple Bloom.” Sweetie Belle squeaks. She looks up at the humanoid. “Sorry, heart’s desire is a plant that had some magical effects on Apple Bloom a few years ago.

Holly covers her mouth in shock. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that a common phrase would…”

“It’s okay, you had no way of knowing.” Apple Bloom says flatly. “I was desperate to get my cutie mark. I really messed up with that.” She stops for a moment. Then she huffs. “Well, where do we go and get some grub?”

Holly tilts her head, her antennae stretching forward. “Typically crew members and officers use the replicators in their quarters and eat in private. But I think you would prefer a more public setting to share a meal?”

Four foals and a griffon all brighten in unison, getting a giggle from the young officer. “We can head over to Ten Forward, then.” She turns and leads the way, four ponies and a young griffon following in her wake. Holly walks proudly, with the invasion of the ponies on the Enterprise, she is very proud to be one of the officers that have been tasked with escorting the various ponies around. Though most of the ponies have been dealing with the plans for colonization, she’s been given custody of the Cutie Mark Crusaders. And once the term was explained to her, and their relation to Twilight and her friends. Holly has been quite proud to be escorting the young ponies around the ship. By a happy coincidence, they were already on deck ten, so it’s a quick walk over to the lounge called Ten Forward. She leads them through the doors and into the lounge. Dodging a mint green unicorn as she hurries into the lounge. They take their seats and the attendant is quick to take their orders and they all eat fairly quickly. Though as they finish, Apple Bloom speaks up. “Well, the food is okay.” She sighs, pushing the last of her vegetable stew around. “But what about dessert?”

Holly smiles brightly. “I’ve got a sweet tooth, too.” She leans closer. “You like apple pie?”

All four fillies smile brightly and nod. She waves the attendant over and orders quickly. Holly looks around the lounge, noting that over a dozen ponies are sitting with either each other, or animatedly talking with crew members. At the bar, the mint green unicorn is sitting next to Commander Riker. Holly gulps, she hadn’t seen Riker enter. But as she watches, the unicorn places a fetlock on his shoulder and leans close to talk to him. Then she’s distracted as the attendant shows up as if by magic and sets six slices of apple pie before each of them. The ponies have little straps attached to their forks so they can pick up the pie. They all take bites.

And every one of them spits out the pie with the exception of the Andorian officer. She looks down at the foals. “Is something wrong?”

Apple Bloom slams a hoof on the table. “I don’t know what this is, but it isn’t apple pie.”

The server, who was watching the reaction in horror looks around at the various disgusted faces at the table. “I don’t know what you mean, the replicator…”

Apple Bloom is using her fork to disassemble the pie. “I mean, the recipe is all wrong. Not nearly right.” She huffs. She looks up at the ceiling. “Let’s see if I can figure this out. “Computer, ya hear me?”

The computer chimes compliantly. Getting a smile from the yellow filly. “Is Applejack on this here ship?”

After a few seconds, “Applejack is on board the Enterprise, currently in Science Lab two.”

“Can I speak to her?”

A few second delay. “Sis?”

Apple Bloom brightens. “Sis, can you get here to Ten Forward?”

“Ahm kinda busy, Bloom.”

Apple Bloom sighs. “These humans don’t have a clue what real apple pie is.”

A long moment of silence. “Ahm on my way.”

Apple Bloom smirks at the Andorian. “Don’t worry, we will fix this travesty of Apples.”

Chapter 5.

Commander Riker’s eyes pop open, confusion reigns for a long moment since he isn’t in his bed, or on the Enterprise actually. He blinks a few times, then memories resurface and he smiles at the sleeping pony curled up against his chest. This one is cream colored, with the most striking bicolored mane and tail, a deep purplish blue and bright pink.

Apparently somepony else was woken by his slight movements. A warm breath is against his ear and teeth gently grasp his earlobe for a moment. “Good morning, stud.”

“Lyra!” Riker breathes.

Her forelegs snake around him and she hugs him to her chest, her strength getting a groan from the tall human. “Told ya it was gonna be a magical night, didn’t I?”

He finds his face flushing. “Yeah.” He rolls onto his back, getting his hand underneath her withers and pulling her up close to him. “It definitely was magical.”

She smiles demurely. “I was a little worried that since our bodies are shaped so differently, there’d be…” She blushes this time. “equipment problems.”

He reaches his head over a bit and kisses her cheek. “Nope, no equipment problems.”

On the floor next to the bed, his communicator chirps. “Enterprise to Riker.”

Riker’s eyes widen, but Lyra lights her horn and brings his uniform shirt up. She taps the communicator. “Commander Riker is indisposed right now, this is Lrya Heartstrings.”

Captain Picard’s voice comes through. “Where is my first officer?”

Riker groans as Lyra giggles throatily. “I’m here Captain.”

“Did I interrupt anything?”

He looks down at his lack of clothing. “Well, no Captain, nothing was interrupted.”

"Just doing some interspecies research," Lyra says with smile and wink at Riker.

Riker makes a grab for the communicator floating in the air putting his finger over his mouth to Lyra.

“I see. That being said, I just retrieved messages from our probe. The Galaxy will be here in half an hour. I want you to talk to Captain Sershek about the colonists he’ll be taking on.” After a Pause, "If you are done, shall i have you beamed up immediately?"

Looking down at his pants, Riker cringes, "Actually sir, there are a few last things I need to check on here. I will signal when I'm ready."

"How long will you need?" Picard asked firmly.

“Half an hour, I’ll beam up in ten then.”

“Good, out.”

He looks over and bright blue eyes are looking up at him, a predatory look is on the Earth pony’s face. She glances at Lyra. “So, we’ve got ten minutes.” She taps her chin. “I think we can find a way to fill that time, right Lyra?”

Lyra’s forehoof moves down his body. “Oh, I think we can make good use of that time.”

Riker’s eyes widen as the mares move. “Oh boy.”

***

When the Galaxy class starship was designed, the first one was to be the test bed for the technology involved in the Federation’s newest flagship. The second one, the USS Yamato, was actually launched first, then the Enterprise. Though the first, the USS Galaxy, after years of testing and redesigning, was finally commissioned into the Federation Starfleet. And while the name Enterprise is on the lips of nearly every Federation citizens, the Galaxy has earned her own reputation as a science and exploration vessel. Luck was with the Enterprise when the call was sent out for every ship that could help with pulling as many ponies off their world, the Galaxy was the first to respond to the urgent subspace call. Though Captain Ivek Sershek has had a long career with Starfleet, he really doesn’t know Jean Luc Picard all that well. With his pointed ears and green tinge to his skin, and the straight haircut typical of Vulcans, he doesn’t really stand out physically, smaller in stature than his first officer, Lt. Cmdr Manya Zaitsev, who is typical of human females in Sershek’s experience. He looks at her, noting a slight bead of sweat on her brow.

“Commander, it is illogical to assume there will be problem. The Enterprise passed through the barrier with no issue.”

She nods jerkily. “I know, Keptin…” She looks out at the scanner produced view on the screen. She clears her throat and straightens her uniform tunic. “Take us in slow. One quarter impulse until we clear the barrier, nav.”

“Aye Commander.”

Sershek nods curtly. “Tactical, ensure our structural integrity field is at maximum, and the shields as well.”

“Aye Captain.”

“Now, all we do is wait until we get through.” He says softly.

From the ops panel, the Tellarite operations officer calls out. “We will impact the barrier in ten seconds.”

Zaitsev glances at her captain, though the Vulcan is his usual calm and unflappable self. She finds some of her stress bleeding off at the seeming unconcern of her Captain.

“Four…three…two…one…impact.” The ship lurches as the saucer section begins to penetrate the barrier, energy dancing along the shields and forward part of the hull.

“REPORT!” The Commander calls.

“Gravitic shear is much higher than the Enterprise reported,” The science officer called out.

Sparks fly from a console as a panel blows out, “I have an EPS Overload, forward sections, deck six and seven.”

The ship jerks again badly as the engineering hull and nacelles make contact with the barrier.

“Barrier is showing nearly twice as dense as reported,” the science officer calls out before being thrown to the ground as the lights shift to emergency lighting. The bridge bathed in the red glow of flashing lights.

“There must be a logical explanation…” The Captain starts then, everything goes quiet.

The shaking stops almost as suddenly as it started, the lighting shifts back to normal, as the ship drifts into the pocket.

“Damage reports coming in, nothing too serious, a few blown EPS conduits, some minor buckling on the outer hull.”

“We have casualty reports coming in, all sections reporting mostly minor injuries from the rough ride.”

“Understood. What about the system?” Sershek says softly.

“Sir, it is exactly as our messages from the Enterprise say. A small system, consisting of…” The Tellarite frowns, his brow furrowing. “An unexplainable sun in orbit nearly the same distance as most moons, an actual moon, and the planet. The Enterprise is in a parking orbit above the main continent of the Planet.”

The human at the tactical station chirps out. “We are being hailed by the Enterprise.”

Sershek nods. “Put Captain Picard on screen.”

Only seconds pass before the main viewscreen changes from the unusual planetary system to the reserved smile of Captain Jean Luc Picard. “Welcome to the Equestrian system, Captain.”

“Our ride through the barrier was a bit more…” He looks at his first officer before looking back at Picard. “Violent than was reported.”

The android officer at ops speaks up. “Captain Sershek, "Sir, I might have a possible explanation. When the size of the barrier was reduced, it may have increased the power available to it. Thus making it somewhat harder to cross."

"Somewhat? I've been in ion storms that weren't that bumpy."

“Any damage?”

“Nothing serious, I will have engineers go over affected sections, and I do recommend that penetrating the barrier be done on thrusters only.”

“Understood, Captain.”

Sershek nods. “We are ready to receive the…” He looks questioningly at Picard. “Ponies?”

Picard nods. “This most definitely is a special case, yes, they are intelligent quadrupeds, and they have abilities that have yet to be quantified. Though we are working to change that fact.”

“When will the first colonists be beaming up.”

“Within the hour, from some of their larger cities, we have nearly ten-thousand ponies ready to come aboard the Galaxy.”

Sershek’s eyes widen. “That’s a bit more than we were expecting, Captain.”

“My Lt. Commander Data has calculated space and energy requirements for a starship of your size, and using all spare cargo bays, you should be able to handle that many.” Picard’s eyes dart to his second officer and back. “And the first of the dragons will have to be beamed up directly into your main shuttle bay.”

Sershek’s eyes widen slightly. “Dragons?”

“We have sent a full biological survey report to Starfleet, detailing the multitude of species on this planet. The colonists know they need to bring representative samples of flora and fauna of their world for colonizing. Most of your colonists will be coming from the city of Manehattan.”

“Surely you are joking, Captain. Manehattan? How would they have names that would be puns in your language?”

Picard smiles. “Yes, and there are also cities called Vanhoover, Baltimare, and other names that are ponylike translations of Earth cities. We suspect that it’s a translation glitch, but are working with Princess Celestia and Prince Blueblood on organizing the ponies for transport.”

“You do realize that it will take several hours to transport that many aboard.”

“Understood. Commander Riker is ready to beam over and give you details for the transportation of the ponies aboard.”

Surshek nods. “Galaxy, out.”

***

The engineering department aboard a starship is one of the larger departments aboard ship, even larger than the science department. Keeping main engineering staffed 24/7 is only part of the duties. Ships away from port have ongoing maintenance that occupies much of the engineers time. Geordie LaForge is standing in the airlock on the starboard side of the engineering hull of the Enterprise. Other members of his staff have suited up, and are working on the sensor arrays on the outer edge of the saucer section. His group is going to work on the starboard arrays, starting just behind the main deflector dish and moving aft. On a floating cart next to him is the various replicated components to be installed. Normally, such extensive work would be done at a spacedock, but they don’t have time to be refitted.

The Enterprise, along with all Galaxy class starships has plenty of room designed for such expansion, whether out in the field or in space dock.

“Okay, commander, you ready?”

Geordie looks at the display on his helmet and nods. “Yeah. Go ahead and open the outer hatch.” He grabs a hold of the cart as the air evacuates from the airlock. In only moments, the outer hatch slowly opens and he picks up a foot slightly to test the magnetic boots, again. Even with a transporter room detailed on standby to make sure anyone who loses their grip on the hull is beamed aboard, going EVA is not usually fun. Geordie walks forward, pulling the cart as he walks down the hull of the Enterprise. A quick glance around at the saucer section shows a good dozen engineers working on the various lateral arrays of the ship’s sensor suites.

He stops, looking at the equipment bay before him. “Okay, Yvonne, powering down the first array here.” A touch of the computer pad opens up a hidden control panel. He taps a few keys and the entire sensor assembly lifts itself away from the body of the array. He pulls the first sensor crystal from the cart and reaches forward to push it into the slot it’s designed for.

“Whatcha doin?”

Geordie frowns. “Keep the frequency clear Yvonne, I don’t need any distractions here.”

Yvonne’s voice comes through his com. “I didn’t say anything Commander.”

“No, she didn’t. I did.” The other voice says.

“What the?” Geordie looks around and flinches back at the pony face way too close for comfort. He takes a step back, looking at the pony floating upside down before him. His VISOR doesn’t give him the color resolution like most humans, but he can see the contrast of the light colored crescent moon on black splotch on her flank, along with the wings and horn of an alicorn, he can make an educated guess. “Princess Luna?”

She grins, though her mouth doesn’t move, yet he can hear her voice. “In the flesh.” He stops, she’s not wearing any sort of space suit, she’s simply floating in space in front of him. Curious, he reaches out and touches her. She giggles. “Yes, I’m actually here, not some sort of projection.”

“How?”

Again that giggle. “I first came out here out of sheer curiosity, two of these huge ships in orbit around our home, I just wanted to get an idea of the scale of ships that my little ponies will be going to an entirely new world on, then I saw your crew actually walking outside your ships. So, again, I ask, whatcha doin?”

Geordie shakes his head slightly. “You know how we can’t sense your magic?” At her nod he continues. “Well, this is the solution.” He holds up the new sensor assembly. “By using these crystals in both our passive and active sensor arrays, we can detect your magic.”

She tilts her head to the side. “And you know this works, how?”

He smiles at her. “Because we tested the technology with Lyra. She helped us develop it from your magic detectors for restricted areas. We were able to build a setup that has been tested and works.”

She smiles brightly. “That is utterly amazing.”

“May I ask you a question, Princess?”

“Of course you may.”

“How are you out here? There’s no air, you aren’t wearing a suit.”

Her tinkling laugh resounds through his head. “Oh, my little…human. I am an alicorn. I am not fully flesh like the ponies are. I can survive in conditions that any other pony would quickly perish in. I am magic.”

“Yeah, but sound doesn’t carry in space, without air to transmit it.”

“True, and you notice, I’m not speaking with my mouth, but you can hear my voice clearly.”

“Exactly.”

She grins. “I am using my magic, Mr. LaForge, I am making the air in your helmet vibrate with my voice, so you can hear me as easily as I can sense the vibrations you make to hear what you are saying.”

He tilts his head to the side for a long moment before clearing his throat. “Well, then. I have several arrays to upgrade, if you will excuse me.”

“Oh, nonsense, I shall help you!” Her magic grabs one of the sensor assemblies off the cart and she walks over to another sensor package. The keypad glows momentarily before the larger terminal’s access door opens. In only moments the package has unsheathed itself and is awaiting the installation of the new sensor. “Like this?” She places the device in its cradle.

He nods before taking a tool and tightening down the array. “Then you have to secure it, like this?”

She frowns for a moment before brightening. “One good thing about magic, my young human, is I can shape it into anything I wish it to be.” She arranges magical fields to be shaped identically to the tool in his hand. She floats the shape into the clamp and the sensor array is tightened into its connection port, allowing the sensor to light up and show it’s ready. She leans back. “Huzzah!” She looks at him. “How many more need to be installed.”

Speechless, the chief engineer of the USS Enterprise gestures to the cart with quite a few more of the sensor arrays ready to be installed. She bounds over and grabs a dozen of them. “This will be so much fun.”

Geordie shakes his head, this is going to be a very interesting experience.

***

Captain Picard walks through the corridors of deck nine. Though he’s been tipped off by several crew members, what he’s seeing is rather shocking. A long line of crew members are patiently waiting along the edge of the corridor, the line of crewers snaking into holodeck two. He nods at the crew members as he passes them and walks into the holodeck before stopping. Before him is a large industrial kitchen, though the proportions are more geared to the shorter ponies, the line ends before a large buffet table with various dishes being served to the crew by several ponies. One of the first ponies to arrive on board the ship, an orange colored mare with three apples on her flank, along with a blonde mane and tail tipped by a red ribbon notices him and smiles brightly. “Ahh, Captain Picard!” She gestures for a light blue mare with a two toned pink mane and tail with pink cupcakes on her flank to come take her place. “Thank ya, sugar cube.” She trots over to Picard. “When I heard the sorry state of your food replicator thingies, I decided to make sure your crew is well fed.” She looks back at the crew taking on plates of food and walking from the holodeck.

“Our replicators work quite well…” He says before being stopped by a sour look from the earth pony mare.

“I’ve tasted your apple pie, Captain.” She says flatly. “Your fancy replicators can produce basic fare, but you should know the crew of a ship survives on good food. Why, you have hydroponics bays for growing fresh produce.”

“How do you…?”

“I talked with yeh Commander Data.” She smiles brightly. “And Reginald Barclay has explained that your systems record a scan of example of food, then replicates it, with some minor errors, on demand.” She holds up a hoof. “Now, that’s just fine for basic needs. But ah’ve talked to quite a few of your crew, and many prefer to replicate basic foodstuffs, and cook their own meals, making their own meals out of basic ingredients. Though you have entire cargo bays with different foodstuffs that don’t replicate well. So, the Apple family is going to help you!”

“I don’t think this is an effective use of our time, Miss Applejack.”

She stops for a long moment, looking back at the ponies working hard in the kitchen before looking back at the tall human. “Captain, ah’m not a mage, nor do I know all the ins and outs of starship engineering. For what Twilight’s doin, I can’t do much except read books and hopefully find something to give to my friend.” She smiles again. “But this…this I can do. Ah’m a strong back and strong legs to build, to grow and harvest food, and yes, cook. If I can make the ponies here feel helpful, and feed your crew in the process, I call that a win in my book. Hold on a moment.”

She trots towards the table, returning balancing a plate with a thick slice of pie with a large dollop of ice cream which she offers to the Captain. “I asked your cargo transporter operator to bring up enough bushels of apples to fill up one of your cargo bays. We also have tree seedlings brought up as well, since we might have to abandon our home world. And don’t you worry, we had a mage put a preservative spell on the food so it will not be spoiling in your cargo bay.” She shifts her weight. “We also had pork and chicken products brought aboard since so many of your crew are omnivores. You should try the fried chicken. But first, I want yah to try this.”

Picard contemplates the pony standing before him. He has a feeling if he refused, she would attempt with all of her might to shove the food down his throat, and be nice about it the entire time. He reaches out and picks up the plate. He can feel the eyes of every crew member in the holodeck on his back as he plunges the fork into the thick yet flaky crust. He eyes the bite on the fork for a long moment before mentally shrugging and placing it in his mouth.

As the flavor hits his tongue, his eyes involuntarily close, and he fights with every fiber of his being to not moan in pleasure. The pie is sheer ambrosia, one of the absolutely most pleasurable things he’s ever put in his mouth. He stands there for a long moment, chewing on this absolute slice of heaven. When he opens his eyes, he can see that this pony knows exactly what has been transpiring. She leans closer. “Yes, everything we make is this good.”

He looks around, noting that plates and food are not disappearing as the crew leave the holodeck. Applejack smiles at him. “Your engineer, Reg, is amazing with the holodeck. He told me how it works, and while most of it went over my head, he did say that physical things like the plates and silverware are replicated. And we are bringing the food in from outside the holodeck. And it created all these wonderful cooking tools that we are using. Pinkie Pie and the Cakes are in heaven, better decked out than even the Canterlot castle kitchens, or so I’m told.” She smiles brightly. “I asked my kin to come up and help.” She stops, her smile freezing on her face. “If we aren’t able to save our home, at least we have a place to work, to make others happy.” She blinks a few times. “But no worries, Captain. Your crew will be well fed while we are here.” She looks at the hatch. “Oh, Mister Worf! Are you back for seconds? Or would that be thirds?” She dashes back into the kitchen as Lt. Worf ends up next to Picard.

Picard looks at the Klingon officer. “I wouldn’t think the fare the ponies make would be to your liking.”

Worf glowers. “They have a way with…” He looks at the mare walking back to him, a platter balanced on her back. “Baked goods, captain.”

Picard’s eyebrows rise as Applejack easily transfers the platter off her back and into his security officer’s hands. “Okay, we’ve got apple fritters, brown betty’s, apple tarts, apple cobbler, apple strudel, deep fried apple pie, baked cinnamon apples, caramel stuffed apples, and lastly, and apple blossom tart.”

“Thank you, Applejack.”

She adjusts her hat. “It’s my pleasure. And remember our deal now.”

Worf looks back at Picard then at Applejack. “I will.” He turns around, laden with the mass of confectionaries, and leaves the holodeck.

Picard glances curiously at the orange mare. “Your deal?”

She nods. “He said that Klingon baking puts human confectionaries to shame. Since they are a warrior race, Klingons need high calorie foods before battle. And while I’ve heard of some of the usual foods his people eat, he did say that Klingon baking is an art form.”

Picard glances at the door where he security chief disappeared through, then back at Applejack. Finally, he smiles brightly at her. “If the crew is happy with the arrangement, keep up what you are doing, then.”

Applejack brightens. “Thank you so much, Captain. Tonight’s supper might be to your liking, we’ve been going through some of your recipes from your home world. And the big highlight of tonight’s supper will be ratatouille, seems to be a relatively simple dish, and some of the vegetables we grow are similar enough to what you have to make it. I’ve tried the early samples.” She sidles up to him a bit. “And I think you’ll love it.”

Picard nods. “If it’s of the same quality as that pie, I will have to try it, Applejack.”

“Proud to be of service, Captain.”

***

Twilight Sparkle huffs as she exits the turbolift. The computer panel on the wall has lit up and is showing her to her destination. She’s on deck twelve, and she was told that much of the deck was taken up by the department she’s supposed to report to. She turns at the computer’s direction and passes through a door. Though she does marvel at how the doors sense her approach and open for her so easily.

“Good morning, Twilight!”

Twilight skids to a stop. “How do you know morning or evening on a starship in orbit?”

Dr. Beverly Crusher gestures to a chronometer display. “Just by what time it is.”

Twilight looks at the display, “Wait a moment, when you arrived, you were about eight or nine hours out of sync with Ponyville and Canterlot.”

Dr. Crusher nods. “When we are in extended contact with a species, for diplomatic reasons we will adjust our chronometers to coincide with the rhythm of the species we are communicating with. It’s easier to sync up our days like this. We don’t have to deal with a sun rising and falling, so the time of day is rather flexible. And we can’t forget time dilation thanks to moving at relativistic speeds.”

Twilight blinks a few times before she remembers why she was in sickbay. “Okay.” She says sourly. “But I don’t know why I need to be here.”

Crusher pats the biobed. Twilight cocks her head to the side then hops up on the bed. She does note that displays light up as she gets comfortable on the bed. Dr. Crusher pulls out a tricorder. “This is a medical device, and our initial scans your first day here didn’t have Geordie’s new innovation to detect your magic. So, we are rescanning you all with these new scanners.” She points up. “Engineering has been very busy, in addition to our shipboard sensors, our internal sensors are being upgraded with the new crystal scanners. It will be a while, but every sensor system on the ship will end up being able to detect your magic.” She pulls out the handheld scanner. Continuing to talk as she scans the alicorn. “While I really do appreciate you and your friends allowing us to scan you then and now. But it’s even more important now with these new scanning abilities. Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash both have had these detailed scans in the last couple of hours. Rarity is scheduled to come in a bit later. But since you are an alicorn…” She stops, looking at the display for a long moment.

“What?” Twilight feels her heart starting to race. “Is there something wrong?”

Dr. Crusher blinks and shakes her head as though to fend off a fly. Then she looks at Twilight. “Wow, I think I’ve got more questions than before. Geordie was told something by Princess Luna while he was working on the hull. That alicorns are…not fully mortal?” She looks at Twilight.

Twilight nods. “That’s right.” She smiles at the human. “We will have to have some serious conversations about alicorns.” She looks at the door to sickbay. “But I would much prefer to continue my work.”

Dr. Crusher gulps. “Don’t worry Twilight, I will get you back to your task quickly. But let’s discuss my findings, okay?”

Twilight’s ears flex back. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Beverly clears her throat. “Okay, the medical sensors in the bed and in my tricorder record various measurements of your health and physical condition. One new innovation with the new magical scanners show how much magic you have available to you. We couldn’t measure that before, but we can now.” She looks at Twilight. “Would it be possible to have any other alicorn’s come here and consent to be scanned, since a good baseline would be with multiple subjects.”

Twilight looks down. “I don’t know, we can ask Princess Luna, and I don’t know about the rest…” She trails off, looking up at the human plaintively. “What’s going on?”

Dr. Crusher turns to her computer display. “Okay, I can say for certain that you don’t have a specific gland for storing magic. But the energy is stored within you, all throughout your body.” She taps her screen for a few moments, and different ponies scans show up side by side. “Pinkie Pie is actually quite unusual. Her before scan and after the enhancements. You can see, she shines quite strongly with magic. You’ve told us that earth ponies tend to have less expressed magic than others. But based on these scans, and yes, Applejack and Apple Bloom are among the ponies I’ve scanned with the new system. Earth ponies have a large magical store.” She taps a few keys. “Among the pegasi, since their magic is expressed in their wings, we can read their wing power as an expression of their thaumic energy. And your friend, Rainbow Dash, has exceptionally high wing power. So yes, she also has a good amount of magical expression in her body.”

“This, I already know, Doctor. What’s going on?”

“Well, I have to get some more examples of unicorns. Lyra Heartstrings is scheduled for another examination, as well as some of the colonists planning on coming on board the Enterprise. But let’s move on to Alicorns. Since you are the only representative we’ve been able to scan. Let me show you.”

Twilight gasps as the new scans show up. “I’m positively glowing with magic?”

Crusher nods. “You have an exceptional amount of ability, Twilight. Far more than the strongest unicorn we’ve scanned so far, and that would be your friend, Starlight.”

“I already knew about my magical potential, I am the element of magic.” She lights her horn and uses her magic on the screen. “I know one book that has been scanned into your computer. On Alicorns, by Lightfoot.” Part of the screen fills with text. “This book is actually quite interesting, since it was sourced from some old interviews with Princess Celestia and Luna, as well as some material which is much harder to get a hoof on. But there were alicorns before they royal sisters, before Cadance and myself. This is one thing about your computer system which I really love, since we can refer to ancient books like that, and also with the new revelations from the forbidden archives of the Castle of the Two Sisters, we can learn so much. Alicorns, be they ascended like us, or the born ones from before the cataclysm, have an aspect to them. You know Celestia, and Luna, and their dominion of the sun and moon, we all have our aspect.” She leans closer, looking at the text. “Wow, learning your language has been a fascinating process.” She blinks. “But I digress.” She clears her throat. “Alicorns are special, and one reason we are royalty, because we have magic in great stores just being the ponies we are. But we are literally the embodiment of our aspect. For me, it’s magic. I am magic.” She smiles at the human. “And now your systems can see that?”

Dr. Crusher nods before tapping more keys. “You also told me the life expectancy of ponies, how it’s vastly different between the different tribes of ponies, with earth ponies being the longest lived, and the unicorns the shortest, with pegasi as being in between?”

Twilight nods. “I was a unicorn, but things have changed when I ascended.”

“No kidding. Based on my scans, your body heals from the day to day far better than humans or any pony species. You are resilient to the point of being absurd. I don’t see an upper limit to your life span. You said Princess Celestia and Luna are well in excess of a thousand years old?”

“Yes.”

Dr. Crusher puts up the representative scans of Twilight’s friends. “Well, I have good news for you, then. Based on my scans, you will not outlive your friends.”

Chapter 6.

The Captain of a starship has many pressures set upon him or her. Being the final arbiter of everything that goes on aboard the starship, the Captain’s time is usually filled with endless tasks and decisions that more junior officers kick up to the Captain so as to not be acting outside of their authority. As such, time spent in the ready room, when not occupied by computer work and other administrative tasks endemic to being captain that cannot be offloaded to a loyal yeoman, is a rare treat. Captain Picard sits comfortably in his chair as he sips on his tea and sighs as he leans back.

“Captain Picard.” Worf’s voice comes over the com system.

Mentally suppressing the urge to sigh, Picard glances at the chronometer, eight blissful minutes. He looks up a bit, projecting his voice to be more easily heard by the computer. “Yes, Mr. Worf?”

“Communication from the Galaxy, Captain Sershek wishes to speak with you, and he says it’s quite urgent.”

That gets Picard’s eyebrows to rise. A Vulcan saying something is quite urgent. He nods. “Patch him through, please.”

The changeover is instantaneous as Captain of the USS Galaxy appears on his desk screen. “Captain Picard.”

Picard fights the urge to laugh at the disheveled look of the other officer. Sershek’s normally immaculate hair is in disarray, and the look on his face could almost be called panicked. Though his voice is fairly even as he speaks. “Captain Picard, as a Vulcan serving in Starfleet. I have been trained to be accepting of other cultures. I have dealt with the arrogance of Andorians, the stubborn pride of Tellorites, I have endured species as driven by emotions as Klingons, but these ponies defy any form of logic.”

Picard savagely suppresses the urge to smile. “Yes, they are almost human in nature, aren’t they?”

Picard again fights to keep his composure as the other captain presses on the bridge of his nose as though he’s trying to suppress a massive headache. Sersheck sighs and looks back up at Picard. “Captain Picard, are you cognizant of what this colonization will entail? The chaos we will be unleashing among the galaxy?”

“Chaos, Captain? In my conversations with the rulers of Equestria, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, chaos is the opposite of the nature of the ponies. In fact, they’ve rarely had any internal wars, and have never instigated wars with their neighboring kingdoms. Though being the arbiter of night and day for the whole world would have a chilling effect on any potential aggressors. Though I’ve communicated with the leaders of the Griffon Kingdom and Saddle Arabia, and they all hold the Princesses in high regard. I hardly see the ponies as agents of chaos.”

“Be that as it may, Captain. We have transported six thousand four hundred fifty seven ponies aboard our ship over the last six hours. In that six hours, we have had a unicorn randomly teleport onto the bridge. A group of ponies have started a song and dance number that involved nearly a third of our crew. A female unicorn child somehow snuck into main engineering and was discovered with her magical aura around our main reactor. She claimed that the crystal inside was misaligned, and the wrong shape. So she went about reforming the dilithium crystal in its cradle, in an active reactor. Then when she was done, her flank glowed brightly and she got one of those marks there, a wave somewhat like a warp frequency wave with a multifaceted crystal over it. She implied it was her special talent, even though she doesn’t fully understand it yet.”

“And, how has your reactor performed since then?”

“My chief engineer took it immediately offline and is currently inspecting the crystal for flaws. You know how dangerous the antimatter reaction can be.”

Picard leans back, taking another sip of his tea. “Captain Sershek, I understand your misgivings about the ponies. But cutie marks have been explained to me. And my crew has been learning of some of the ponies special abilities, they have been known to do some very intricate and specialized work going solely off of instinct. The fact that your reactor had to be taken offline rather than detecting a problem and going offline on its own tells me that the ponies, at times, have an intuitive sense, if you will, of how things work. Twilight Sparkle herself has astounded me with her grasping knowledge that would be decades, if not centuries, ahead of their knowledge base.”

That gets an uncharacteristic sigh from the Vulcan. “That was just the tip of the iceberg, as you humans say. Another child, this one a colt, got into one of the monitoring rooms for the starboard core of the main computer. Then he proceeded to reconfigure the subspace field around the core. And then when we tested the system after he was sent to his herd, the computer was operating nearly thirty percent faster. But it now randomly breaks into song, complete with musical accompaniment. This is intolerable.”

Picard nods. “I understand. I will inform Princess Celestia to let the migrating ponies know that they need to follow the rules of the starship before they are brought aboard. Perhaps you would send a few crew members down to the beaming sites to inform the ponies of your rules?”

Sershek blinks a few times. “That is an excellent idea, Captain Picard. Provided that we can get our reactor going in time, we should be departing in five hours time. The one way trip is estimated to be twelve days. The Galaxy will do its duty and return for more ponies.”

“Have the dragons been beamed aboard?”

Sershek nods. “We have the entire clutch of recently hatched dragons. As well as some of the smaller adults along with two of the larger ones. How big can dragons get?”

“According to the ponies here, truly enormous, to where they wouldn’t fit onboard our ships without some serious refitting.”

“It would be labor intensive, but roughly a third of the internal volume of the ship is open space, as you well know for our class of starship. Perhaps we can make that space minimally habitable while we are underway, and can take some of our larger guests aboard there.”

Picard nods. “Make it so. And I will see you in roughly twenty-eight days.”

Sershek nods before his face disappears.

***

Twilight Sparkle blinks slowly at Dr. Crusher. “Not outlive my friends? What do you mean?”

Dr. Crusher turns to her computer terminal, tapping a few keys the display of Twilight’s magical aura floats out from the display and takes on a three dimensional aspect. “I don’t have a full accounting of everything to do with your magic, but I can see energy signatures. As I told you, Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash have been scanned with this new setup. But I can see their unique signatures, their magical fingerprint if you will, intertwined with yours. Look at this.”

The doctor taps several keys, keeping an eye on the holographic display. Twilight’s own aura shifts over to the side, and several other imprints bring themselves to the forefront. Dr. Crusher turns back to Twilight. “From what I can see, this is an ongoing connection you have with your friends. I can see five other signatures in addition to yours. And in their scans.” A few key taps has the entire holographic display shrinking and moving to the side as another signature shows up. This one is obviously a pegasus. “I can see that your own signature is intertwined with theirs.” She moves away from the computer console, picking up her medical tricorder again before running the handheld sensor over Twilight’s horn. She leans down and looks seriously into Twilight’s eyes. “You are somehow connected to them, and I’m trying to figure out the nature of this connection.”

Twilight eyes the sensor as it’s passed over her again, her ears twitching at the faint sounds the device makes as it scans her. Crusher can see the pony is lost in thought. Finally, Twilight brightens. “The elements.” Then her face falls. “But they were destroyed. How?” Her eyes dart back and forth, trying to work through the conundrum. Then she smiles. “Now I know why. Whenever one of my friends gets close, I can feel them even without using my magic. How I can feel what they are feeling when their emotions are strong.” She turns to look at the display. “The elements, when they hit me, sending me to that place, where I became an alicorn.” She narrows her eyes. “I felt something, before the magic changed me and gave me these wings.” She extends one a bit. “I could feel their terror, their panic, as the elements were pouring all that power into me. I knew they weren’t doing it on purpose, that this was something beyond mere ponies, but elemental, a connection started there.” She smiles brightly. “They established a connection with my friends, and it’s endured even through the destruction of the elements themselves.”

“I’m sorry, what elements?”

Twilight blinks. “Oh, yeah, you don’t know about the Elements of Harmony.” She sighs, “Now that is a story. Well, the quick rundown would be, there were six elements from the Tree of Harmony. It was formed over a millennium ago when Starswirl the Bearded and his companions imbued the fledgling tree with the aspects of each of them. Loyalty, Kindness, Laughter, Generosity, Honesty and Magic. When they disappeared, the tree grew, its magic allowing it to tame the Everfree Forest. And then, to defeat Discord, the Princesses removed them from the tree, using their power to turn him to stone for a thousand years. Princess Celestia held the stones until Luna returned as Nightmare Moon, where I and my friends first used them against her, and reformed her, removing the darkness that made her Nightmare Moon. And boy, we’ve had some other adventures with them. But when I was able to figure out Starswirl’s unfinished spell, that’s when they made that connection between us. Things changed a lot that day.”

Dr. Crusher pats the alicorn gently on the withers. “Well, that helped me understand a lot more about you and your friends.” She looks at the display then back at Twilight. “Any other ponies have something like that happen to them?”

That gets a bark of a laugh from Twilight. “Oh, no. The Elements were unique. The only others to wield them were the Princesses. And their connection goes way back.”

Crusher puts the hand scanner back into the tricorder. “Well, that’s all the scanning I need to do for you. Do you have any questions for me?”

Twilight looks at the scan information as the computer digests everything, the diagram of her becoming clearer and more detailed as the computer adds the new information to the display. She looks at the Doctor. “No, but I’ve got to say, your computer system is just…amazing.”

“Yes, it has so many uses. It’s a wonderful tool for me, and for everyone on board.”

Twilight grins. “Well, I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

***

Princess Celestia walks slowly through the palace. Among her many duties as ruler of Equestria, her time at her school is easily her favorite. Working with young minds, helping bring these young ponies to the peak of their magical abilities. And while the school is said to be for unicorns, that’s not exactly exclusive. At this point, there are two pegasi who’ve shown exceptional magical abilities, and one of the rarest of the rare, an earth pony that also has magic. That little colt is going far in her estimation. He will be among the ponies last to be sent off on one of the starships that has been dispatched to help with this crisis.

As things are, the first ponies to emigrate are volunteers from major cities. If Equestria survives this, they will still have colonized a second planet, which is amazing for her to contemplate. There are other planets out there with intelligent life. And they are willing to help! The generosity of spirit of these members of this Federation continuously astounds her. Were she to walk the streets of Canterlot, she would encounter some of the different species that make up this huge assemblage of very different cultures, yet they are all working together to create harmony. That fact has a bright smile on her face as she walks into the school wing. She doesn’t have a new protégé at the moment, she hasn’t had one since Twilight Sparkle. Distantly she thinks that perhaps she should choose a new young pony to guide and show them the wonders of magic. Then her smiles freezes on her face. If they don’t figure out a solution to this crisis, all of this will be gone, destroyed in massive matter antimatter explosions as their planet is broken apart, to save billions of lives on another planet. She suppresses her emotions, Twilight and her friends, and the valiant crew of the Enterprise are going to do everything in their power to prevent that necessity. Betazed will be protected, and life will go on, not just for her, but for her beloved ponies.

The clop of the hooves of one of her guard snaps her to the present. The earth pony stallion slides to a stop and salute. “Princess. Communication from the Enterprise, they are beaming down the school children.”

That gets an uncharacteristic squeal from the Princess as she prances in place for a few moments. She smiles happily at the guard. “They are beaming down to the rotunda as requested?”

He nods and she whirls around and gallops off, keeping her wings tight against her body as she runs. Sometimes it’s the most wonderful thing to simply run. She skids around a turn and slows her mad dash to a more leisurely canter before stopping at the rotunda. Standing there are a multitude of these students, some truly small, all the way up to lanky teenagers. All of them are wearing simple jumpsuits in muted colors. She takes a deep breath, it wouldn’t do to greet them in a lather.

“Greetings and welcome to Equestria, young ones.” She intones softly. She notes the one adult in the typical Starfleet uniform, instead of red like Captain Picard, the front of the shirt is blue, though the rank insignia on her collar is not the typical small pips like the officers.

She steps forward and places her hands before her before bowing slightly. “Princess Celestia, I am Chief Petty Officer Gladstone. I am the primary school teacher on board the Enterprise. This is my class.” She names the children and each one acknowledges their name, getting a nod from the Princess and a warm smile as each name is pronounced. These are children from other worlds, not just their Earth, but from several planets in the Federation. Princess Celestia fights to contain her excitement, children born in space, or born on completely different worlds.

“As this is part of your education, I will show you around our magical school. Equestrian magic is unknown to your Federation scientists, but we are working to help your scientists and engineers understand the ways of our magical abilities. I am going to show you how we teach young magic users on our world.” She turns and starts walking, the class shambling along behind her. “One thing that is common with your science and with our magic is math. Mathematical theories are used in magic just as they are with the science and technology you use on a daily basis. In fact, much of your technology, from instantaneous translation to your matter replicators, we have magical equivalents. For example, I am not speaking your language. I am speaking mine, but once one of my mages figured out the translation matrix that your universal translator uses, we’ve applied it magically so what I’m saying sounds like the language you are familiar with. And matter replication, we have similar spells to turn common materials into things we desire. We accomplish with our magic what you do with tools.” She smiles brightly at the children.

She turns a corner and opens a door. “In here is a basic telekinesis class. While telekinesis is a basic skill almost all unicorns have from birth, this teaches handling of finer objects, and also bolsters the strength of the caster.” She nods to the teacher. “If you understand energy conversion, we don’t actually generate magical energy. We use it, it’s everywhere, imbued within the universe is energy that we can tap into with our horns. That is not to say that using our magic isn’t effort, and can be quite taxing. So, unicorns in particular, crave high sugar foods to keep our own energy up as we channel large amounts of energy. And what this teaching does is trains the casters to use the energy more efficiently.” She gestures at a small filly, her eyes squeezed shut as her horn is brightly lit. Dozens of colorful balls are dancing around her head in an intricate pattern. “Experienced casters can pick up and manipulate dozens of items at a time, some more than others.” The teacher tosses several new balls towards the unicorn filly, who integrates them into her pattern. “This is what is known as magical fundamentals. We have group projects where one pony will set a gear in motion, and others add more gears, keeping them all spinning, but they have to get creative, not just a single plane of gears, but many directions and speeds, all powered by the one initial gear.”

As they move through the school, Celestia works to show the children different disciplines among her school ponies. Answering questions as the children bring them up. Finally they get to a large room, filled with shelves of books. “And now, my dear children, is the library. I’m sorry to say that you haven’t been taught our written language, but here is a large assemblage of our written history. Many of these books are being scanned into the computer on the Enterprise for reference when it comes to combatting our current problem. Captain Picard has talked about, if our efforts to save Equestria bear fruit, sending down a computer system much like what is in your starship, allowing all of this information to be preserved.” She smiles warmly. “Hopefully this will happen in the near future. Now, I want you all to move among the ponies here, sit down and talk with them, get to know them. Make friends.”

The children slowly scatter to various parts of the large room as the officer moves up to Celestia. “Truly amazing.”

Celestia tilts her head slightly. “Hm?”

“When you were described to us, given your technology level, I did not expect the amount of teaching going on here. You ponies have a tremendous knowledge base to draw from. About disciplines that are completely unknown to the Federation. If we can save this world, teams of scientists could spend lifetimes learning about you ponies.”

That gets a warm smile from the solar diarch. “I sincerely hope that will be the case. Not just for my sake, but for all the ponies and the citizens of your Federation. I hope we can be friends.”

The petty officer nods. “I hope so, too. And I do hope Captain Picard works on formalizing a relationship between the Federation and Equestria.”

“Oh? Formalizing?”

She nods. “I don’t think you would qualify to join the Federation, you are a special case though. Normally we are completely hands off when it comes to civilizations without the ability to travel faster than the speed of light. But given the circumstances, perhaps associate status, or protectorate might work out.” She stops and thinks for a moment. “I mean, if you would want ponies involved in life outside your star system.”

Celestia brings up a hoof and taps her chin. “I would want to talk to Captain Picard about that.” She smiles at the human. “Thank you.”

***

Captain Sershek is in his ready room, much of his time when in his sanctuary here is either spent meditating, or doing necessary computer work. As of right this moment, he’s reviewing the report sent to him from his chief engineer. He looks up at the door chime. “Enter.”

The door slides open, admitting his first officer and several ponies. Sershek looks at Zaitsev. “I asked for the child and her parents.

A peach colored unicorn steps forward. “We are her family. I am Light Step, lead mare for our herd. If you must pronounce punishment for our little Light Speed…” She looks at the filly cowering between the front legs of a Pegasus stallion. “We will all be involved. She was our responsibility.”

Captain Sershek stands up, unconsciously tugging at his uniform tunic. “I have no reason to pronounce any punishment. I merely summoned you here so I can understand more of what happened.”

Poking her head out more, the little filly looks up, “Mister Captain sir, I’m sorry. I didn't mean to cause problems."

“Actually, apologies are not necessary. I was reviewing my engineers report. He included scans of the crystal before you did what you did. And it turns out that there was flaws in the crystal, the passage through the barrier around your world had caused harmonic fracture within the crystal. It was sufficient at lower power levels. But once we had gone to warp, it likely would have caused the crystal to fracture. It took detailed analysis of the routine scans to find that flaw. Without that analysis, we would never have known that the flaw existed. You very likely saved the ship. But what I need to understand is…how?”

Light Speed gulps and takes a few steps forward. “Well, mister Captain, it didn’t sound…right. I could hear it vibrating all through the ship. It sounded sick to me. So, when I got to engineering, I reshaped it so it could be strong again, stronger than it was before.”

“Sick?”

Light Speed nods. “I don’t know fully what this cutie mark means.” She turns sideways, “But, I have discovered my special talent, and to think I discovered it my first time on a starship. I can feel the resonance inside your power crystals, the heart of the ship. I’ve always liked going to Canterlot and going through the crystal caves below the city. But that dilithium, I can feel it better. It sings to me, I can feel it. I know you turned your reactor thingie back on, I knew the moment it turned on cuz of its singing, right now. And it sings beautifully.”

“And that brings me to what you did. Federation and Vulcan science, among many others, have spent centuries to perfect the shape and composition of dilithium crystals for use in warp engines. And you did in seconds what trained scientists have spent their lives on. How?”

The filly looks down at her light blue hoof, pawing gently at the carpeted deck. After a moment, she looks up. “I really don’t know. It’s not always easy to explain what a cutie mark means. I was sad because I’m older than most ponies in my class and I didn’t get my cutie mark in school. And then I come on to your ship. And then I could feel your crystal. And it was sick…” She looks up at him. “I knew I could fix it, its happy now.”

Sershek nods. “Well, you will be happy to know, the reaction is now significantly more efficient now. I have approved the use of the new crystal for now. If it proves to be as efficient as initial tests show, we will transmit the new design to Starfleet Engineering. You will get credit, young…filly…for making all of Starfleet more efficient. So, for that, thank you.”

The filly beams as his first officer leads the ponies from his ready room. As the door closes he sits down in his seat heavily. “Completely illogical…” the first officer murmurs softly.

***

The transporter field fades from around Captain Picard and Dr. Crusher. Nestled in somewhat of a valley is a well constructed animal sanctuary. Though Picard takes a moment to look, the numbers of creatures are nearly identical to Earth creatures is breathtaking. The yellow Pegasus is walking slowly towards them. Dr. Crusher leans over towards him. “Amazing, Jean Luc. I’m going to have to do DNA scanning, but these look like Earth fauna.”

Fluttershy stops, hiding a bit behind her mane. “Welcome.”

Picard smiles brightly. “This is your sanctuary?”

She nods. “It’s called the Sweet Feather Sanctuary. All the animals here are being rehabilitated so they can be released back into the wild.” She flinches as a white rabbit has come up and is tugging on her mane. “Oh, Angel, wait your turn.”

The rabbit chitters at her, then she shakes her head. “No, I’m busy right now, Angel.” She looks up at the two humans. “I’m sorry, but Angel can be very insistent when he wants something.

Crusher blinks slowly. “You can understand what he’s saying?”

She nods. “Of course. But with your translator thingie, can’t you?”

Picard and Crusher look at each other for a long moment before shaking their heads. Fluttershy smiles. “Well, most ponies can’t understand my animal friends, either.”

“Are they sapient?” Picard asks.

Fluttershy narrows her eyes. “I think I understand what you are asking, whether they think in the same way ponies do, or griffons, or minotaurs.” She looks up at Picard. “Or you humans. And I would have to say…no. They are smart, in their own ways, but limited. They tell me their needs and wants, but they don’t think about much beyond immediate needs and desires. I can’t have a philosophical conversation with a deer or a duck.” She smiles brightly, which falters as her eyes focus behind the two humans. “Oh, hi Discord.” Her smile comes back, brighter than before.

Picard and Beverly spin around, and they look up. A creature is standing there, the most insane amalgamation of different species parts that either have ever seen before. The creature ignores them and exits a hole in the air, which snaps closed behind him. “Oh dear Fluttershy, are you ready for our tea?”

Picard frowns, something is familiar about this creature.

“Captain Picard, Doctor Crusher, this is my friend, Discord.”

Discord perks an eyebrow then twirls around the pair looking them up and down, "Bipedal hairless, dogs or primate?" Standing up to his full height he looks down at them, "No magic? Ugh, these creatures have barely crawled out of the muck." Sticking his nose into the air he huffs, "This kind of creature probably zips around in space between the stars, thinking they are superior to everyone else, trying to do good but actually messing everything up. Blah."

Fluttershy’s voice gains some hardness. “Now, Discord, be nice. They are trying to help our world.”

“Help? What help can they be compared to all-powerful the lord of chaos!” He spreads his limbs wide and laughs, out of nowhere the sky turns dark and black clouds appear with lightning flashes as bolts silhouette him.

It’s Fluttershy’s turn to roll her eyes. “Oh so dramatic. This isn’t Ogres and Oubliettes.” She says sarcastically.

Dr. Crusher steps forward. “This world is in danger, Discord.”

He turns quickly and fixes her with a stare with his yellow eyes. “Danger. No. Not with me around. I’ll never let anything happen to Fluttershy.” The yellow pony clears her throat loudly. Discord rolls his eyes. “And her friends.” Getting a beaming smile from the Pegasus.

“Then perhaps you are not aware that this world, and the bubble of space around it is hurtling into the…”

“How boring, she just keep yapping away,” Discord turns and snaps his fingers, and with a bright flash, Dr. Crusher is turned into a large dog, which barks at him.

“Discord!” Fluttershy snaps.

He turns and looks at her. “What?”

“Turn. Her. Back!”

“Would you rather I turned her into a bunny?” He stops, looking down at Angel. “On second thought, one of those is more than enough.” He looks at Fluttershy and sighs. “Oh, very well, for you, Fluttershy.”

He snaps his paw and with another flash, Dr. Crusher is standing there. “…Betazed. And not to mention the entire system is in danger!” She stops, looking around. “What happened?”

Picard is jolted from his thoughts. “I know you.”

“Of course you do, we were just introduced,” shaking his head Discord smirks. “I’m pretty famous around here, I even have my own stained glass image at the castle.”

Picard takes a step forward. “True, but you are more than the ponies know, aren’t you?”

Discord whirls around, bending down to glare at the Captain. “You would presume to know my identity? I am Discord. I am Chaos incarnate. I am Fluttershy’s friend. Do you want to take this outside?” With a snap of his fingers Discord opens a rift to a realm of pure chaos.

“I know that voice, Discord.” He glances at Fluttershy then back to Discord. “In fact, I think we’ve met on a few occasions.”

He glances at Fluttershy then back to Discord. “In fact, we’ve met on a few occasions.”

Discord rolls his eyes. “Oh, someone might have met them, I mean, humanity has gotten farther out from their home system than was expected. Likely someone was ordered to make contact with them.” “Discord.” Her voice is carrying a lot of warning, getting the creature to flinch. "What? I was in stone for 1000 years remember? That was before you and I became friend.” Discord half shrugs,

“The arrogance of these primates.” Discord flows over and embraces Fluttershy. “Now, don’t you worry, Discord will take care of any dangers to our home, you don’t need to worry that pretty pink mane of yours.”

Fluttershy blinks. “What is he talking about, Discord? How do you know him?”

Discord rolls his eyes. “Oh, we might have met, I mean, humanity has gotten farther out from their home system than was expected.”

“Discord.” Her voice is carrying a lot of warning, getting the creature to flinch.

“Oh, no offense intended, Fluttershy. That was before you and I became friends.”

“Discord, you come clean right now. Tell me how you know these humans!”

Picard crosses his arms and smiles smugly. “Yes, I’d be happy to hear you spin the tale, Q.”

Chapter 7.

Discord stands there for a long moment, his eyes darting between Picard and Fluttershy, as his clawed talons drum against his paw, “Well what do you want me to say?”

Picard’s grin turns savage, “It looks like I have found something you actually care about more than creating chaos, Q.” He points at Fluttershy.

Blinking confusedly, Fluttershy looks between the pair, trying to understand the situation, lowering her head somewhat to hide her face behind her mane. “Umm, Discord?”

“Miss Fluttershy, your friend here is even more powerful than I think even Celestia realizes.” He darts a glance at Discord. “And Q, is most certainly chaotic. In fact he’s known as Q the liar, Q the misanthrope, bringer of chaos.” He stands up and turns back to Discord. “Why don’t you show your friend how you have appeared to us.”

Discord rolls his eyes. “Honestly Picard, you must be legendary for your lack of fun. Picard the boring, Picard the spoilsport.”

A flash of light appears beside Discord and a human in red and black robes appears on a floating throne. “My ears are burning. That being said, Picard the aphantastical.”

Discord looks to Q, nodding. “Thank you,” turning back to Picard, “Better?”

Picard chuckles, “I think so.”

“Discord.” Fluttershy squeaks. “What is going on here? Why does he sound like you?”

Discord spreads his arms wide. “It’s not easy to explain, at least to mortals, but this is as I am here.”

Q continues. “To other species I find it more convenient to appear as something they understand.” Glancing at Discord, Q shakes his head. “Honestly, you still haven’t found a good outfit yet?”

Discord glances at Q and rolls his eyes. “But essentially we are one.”

Q growls, glancing at Picard. “And the same. To a point, though the reality of it is much more nuanced and far too complicated for your feeble ape brain to comprehend.”

“What about my pony brain?”

Q looks down and sneers, “As prim…”

“No.” Discord says firmly.

“Well she asked,” Q counters, “It would be rude not to respond.”

Fluttershy looks at Q, then at Discord, then back to Q before taking a couple of steps back. “So, what do you actually look like, Discord? Or Q?”

Both Discord and Q pinch the bridge of their noses and shake their head. Though Discord’s nose is comically attached to a big pair of glasses, he removes the glasses and nose and tosses them and they fade to nothing before hitting the ground. “As intelligent and perceptive as you are, Fluttershy.” Discord says. “Even you wouldn’t be able to understand or conceptualize my true form. I’m not a biological entity like you.”

“And we are NOT bringing up pinball machines, gas stations and infinite roads to try to explain, I need to save that for later,” Q says firmly.

“As it is, I am this form here, and will always be this form, especially for you my little Fluttershy,” Discord says stroking the pony’s cheek gently. “Except when it’s more fun to not.”

Q gacks once, “Ugh so that’s what nausea feels like, you have become way too sappy Discord,” Looking at Picard he shakes his head, “I may look Klingon, Romulan, Breen, even a gelatinous ambient puddle depending on what world I’m visiting.”

“Or tormenting,” Picard says with a huff, “Like a three headed Aldebaran snake?”

“Or a drone soldier from after your third world war,” Q says putting his finger against the side of his nose, “Oh the drugs are so good.”

Fluttershy flinches. “World wars? Like humans against other species on your planet?”

“Oh no little Fluttershy, far more evil then that,” Q smiles, “You see, aside from humans killing animals as lesser species, and driving many to extinction, humans went as far as trying to kill each other, their entire history is broken up not by times of peace, but by times of war, The Crusades, the 100 year war, the civil wars, the first, second and third world wars.”

Picard nods. “Our history isn’t nearly as harmonious as you ponies. We are the apex preadators of our homeworld.”

Fluttershy seems a bit mollified by this answer, actually turning a little green. Discord picks her up gently, “Enough of that Q, picking on Picard is one thing but you’re upsetting Fluttershy.”

Picard blinks. “You act as you are different beings, Q, enough of this.”

Discord sighs and shakes his head, “First we are the same, now we are different, make up your mind on what you want.”

“The truth,” Picard says firmly.

Q puts on a pair of sunglasses as a military uniform of an age long gone manifests around him. “The truth? You can’t handle the truth.”

Discord face palms, “Ouch. Consider it like this, I generally stay here.”

“But the universe often needs a kick in the rear to keep things going, as well, the Continuum often has other tasks they want done, knock a civilization back to the stone age, test a species to see if they should be allowed to continue in space.” Q says with the flip of the hand, “Stuff that means I can’t stay around here too often.”

“So you are a copy,” Picard says looking at Discord.

“Pfff, a copy, honestly, ok let’s try and make this as simple as I can,” Discord says, “I have infinite power, so what happen if you split infinity in half?”

Picard blinks opening his mouth then shuts it, tilting his head he thinks for a moment.

“Oh that’s got his brain spinning, as such I just duplicate myself when needed,” Q states. In seconds, more copies of both Discord and Q appear, populating the area with hundreds of copies. Q smiles and snaps his fingers, with a bright flash of light, there is just Q and Discord standing there. He’s changed from his robes to a Starfleet Captain’s uniform. “There, that’s better.”

“And not using the mirror pool, oye that was messy.” Discord says, as both Q and Discord face palm.

“You are more powerful than we know?” Fluttershy asks looking up, “Why are we in this situation then? Our planet could be destroyed? And you do nothing?”

Discord looks at Q then back at the yellow pegasus. “Fluttershy, you wound me.” Putting a claw to his head while holding the pony, “I knew we were going to enter the Betazed system. I didn’t expect anyone to notice and would have just altered things so we’d pass through without any danger.”

Q rolls his eyes, “Then of course the Enterprise has to get involved, with their ‘we know best’ attitude.” His voice drips with sarcasm as he turns to Picard and Beverly. “This Human Federation of theirs thinks the universe revolves around them.”

“Q, this is serious. Billions of lives are at stake here,” Picard says, stepping closer.

“Lower life forms, tell me, would you take this interest if the planets involved had nothing ‘you’ would describe as intelligent life? Would you do this for billions of normal animals? Or billions of trees?” Q says with a smirk.

“Fix this little game, Q.” Picard snaps.

“I didn’t cause this,” Q says firmly, “This is a system remnant thousands of years old, with creatures here who discovered truths about reality putting them on steps of evolution far beyond anything the humans have even begun to dream of.” Making a wide motion with his arms, “While humans were worshiping idols to make it rain, building mud huts, and cowering from the dark, the ponies here were learning that they could affect the very laws of reality, bending them to their will.” He looks down at Fluttershy, actual fondness on his face. “They learned to control the very elements of nature, they made it rain, they conquered the darkness. They took the first steps.” He looks back at Picard. “Some of those steps that humanity still hasn’t.”

“They haven’t discovered faster than light travel,” Picard says firmly.

“Oh, you egocentric humans,” Discord laughs, “While learning to bend space and time was the ultimate discovery of your existence. Ponies have been bending space and time without technology for thousands of years now. Just because they haven’t visited other world doesn’t mean they haven’t discovered things that your species isn’t even close to figuring out.” He reaches out and touches Fluttershy’s wings. “Even the non-magical ponies have imbued abilities that no human can do without technological assistance.”

“What’s happening, Discord?” Fluttershy says softly, putting a hoof on Discord’s chest.

“Grandstanding, Picard here can’t accept the fact that the Continuum believes in testing the mind, and not with simple things like one plus one, but opening ones mind to the chaos that is reality.” Discord chuckles, “Fine.” With a snap of the claw…. Nothing happens.

Q blinks and twirls his hand once, then looks around, “Well that’s, inconvenient. Picard, what mess have you caused now?”

“Me, Q?” Picard looks sternly.

Discord looks at Fluttershy and back at his claw. He brings up his paw and snaps it. Again, nothing happens. “Something is wrong.” He mutters before looking at Q. “You haven’t been kicked out of the Continuum again have you? No that’s not it, I can feel my power, I can feel I am me.”

Q blinks, then twirls his finger again, “Strange, that normally works.”

“You can’t.” A new voice says, as it seems to come from everywhere at once.

Blinking Q and Discord look at each other and groan in stereo, facepalming.

“Q,” Discord says with a sigh, “What now?”

A female form appears in a bright flash of light, wearing a Starfleet captains uniform. Long auburn hair with brown eyes. “You called?” She says sarcastically.

Q storms over to her. “Why are you interfering in this, Q? You know this world is supposed to be protected.”

She holds up her hands. “I have nothing to do with this, sort of.” Looking at her hand she flips it back and forth, inspecting her fingertips. “This form is utterly dreadful, how can you spend time like this.”

Discord blinks, “It’s an acquired taste, so what is going on then?”

“The decision was made by the Continuum.” She say’s and turns flipping her hand, “I’m merely here to inform you of the decision. Something about a trial, a test, that if they want to interfere, they might learn something.” She grins savagely.

Looking at Discord, “You’ve spent your time among the ponies. You are going to have to figure, oh what do they call it? The Magic of Friendship?” She looks at Picard, then at Fluttershy. “Or all of your precious friends are going to lose their home, with most dying here.” Looking to Picard, “And Betazed will be ripped apart by the shockwave of the destruction of this system and its star. But I’m sure an… Evolved… Species would figure out a solution.”

“You can’t do that.” Q sputters.

“As I said, I didn’t.” She snaps. “The Continuum made that decision and is implementing it. I’m merely the messenger.”

“Oh let me guess, this was Q’s idea?” Q says looking annoyed.

Discord leans forward. “Something is odd here.” He murmurs softly.

Q growls. “The Continuum, well thank you Picard, due to your meddling, everyone and everything on two worlds is going to die. And I can’t have any fun.”

Fluttershy looks up between them, “You can stop this right?”

“Oh yes, because as always this is nothing but fun to you.” She snarks. She crosses her arms. “And they made the decision, One I fully support, by the way. Just to see you squirm a bit is worth it.” she says smiling at Q.

“I’ve already been punished for abusing my powers. I had to live as a lowly human. Remember?”

“Oh yes, and one little selfless action convinced enough to show that you’ve changed. But you and I both know, you haven’t. And you just keep interfering rather than letting lesser forms survive or fail on their own.” She looks at Picard, then down at Fluttershy.

Discord hugs Fluttershy tighter causing her to let out a little squeak.

“And now you really have to prove their worth.” She looks back at Q. “But at least, this time, you have your powers. You can just leave if you want, you can watch, it’s up to you. You just can’t use them to fix this problem. Before, it was a moon threatening a planet. Now…” She grins. “Two planets are at risk. And you can’t just.” She snaps her fingers. “Snap your fingers and change reality.” She looks down at Fluttershy. “And the one you care about, the one who makes you feel all wiggly inside, is in peril.”

“I can just send her offplanet, send her to the Enterprise, to another world, she’ll be safe no matter what.” Discord snaps.

“And her animal friends? Her pony friends? Her princess? Celestia said herself she’s not leaving until every single last pony is saved.” She lifts her hand, and a large pocket watch is in it, ticking loudly. “And you don’t have enough time to evacuate them all, no matter how many ships the Federation sends.”

“I see now.” Discord growls before stepping forward, wrapping his paw around the other Q’s neck. She looks defiantly at him before he pulls. Bright light is emitted from both as they briefly fight, then Discord is blown back, with something in his grip. Picard gapes as Discord holds onto another draconequus, though with a white mane and obviously female.

Q blinks. “You’ve been playing here, too? You just can’t let anyone else have any fun.” He crosses his arms over his chest.

“So you are Eris,” Discord says flatly, “I figured it was another Q, but you, Q?”

Eris grabs his paw, peeling it from her neck. “Yes, I was chosen for a reason. I’ve been to Equestria before. Checking up on a statue from time to time.”

Discord has a tie around his neck, which he slips a claw underneath as though it’s choking him. “Oh, so you know about that.” He murmurs softly. Getting a nod from the female Q and Eris.

Fluttershy looks like she’s about to faint. “There’s more of you? And she’s like you?”

Discord stands up before turning towards the humans and the pony. “While you’ve never met Q before.” He gestures to the female Q. “Apparently she’s been a visitor to this world. And her form here is Eris, Princess of disharmony and strife.”

Picard frowns. “What I find interesting is that you both chose similar forms to show up on this world, yet you show up human. Why?”

Eris looks at Picard, “A real dullard isn’t this one? We either chose the dominate life form, as if any of your species is really dominant, or an amalgamation. Easer than just being a floating ball of white light that drives creatures to insanity. So messy, nobody ever takes well to that.”

Discord points to the differing horns on his head. “When I first arrived, I took a lay of the land, I saw the abilities of the creatures on this planet.” He looks down at Fluttershy. “And their potential. Ponies were quite different when I first arrived here. They were in their own star system, no troublesome barrier to deal with. They peacefully orbited their sun like any other planet in the galaxy.” He gestures expansively. “But there were alicorns, so I chose the ultimate form. It’s a combination of all the magical creatures on this planet in one!” He looks at Picard. “Unlike an alicorn, who only has one horn. I have two!” He points. “Thus I’m at least twice as good as any alicorn.”

Eris rolls her eyes. Then she disappears, reappearing intertwining her body around Discord. “Oh, spare me the sophistry, Q.”

“Discord.”

“Eris, whatever.” She chuckles before reappearing in a flash of light away from him. “I will admit.” She looks at an arm, visibly preening. “This form certainly suits me. Or any Q. But you know, Discord. The clock is ticking.”

Discord’s jaw drops, blinking a few times he bends over picking it up and reattaches it shaking his head. “I don’t even know where to begin. I would normally just move the system past Betazed. Now…” He glowers at Eris. “I can’t do that.” He looks at Picard before bowing with a flourish before the human. “Once again, I will have to place myself in your hands.” A quick glance at Fluttershy. “To save the home of the ponies.”

Picard takes a step back. “We are still trying to figure out what to do, Q.”

Discord looks to Q. “Do you?”

“I would guess, this yours to deal with after all,” Glancing to Picard, “Besides I have a date in the Gamma quadrant.”

“Well don’t let me keep you,” Discord says and claps his paw and claw together, causing a flash, as Q vanishes. And the taller draconequus relaxes slightly.

“Discord! Q! Eris! Whatever your name is! What are you going to do!?” Fluttershy yells.

“Oh, fine,” Eris growls, snapping her paw and causing the female Q to disappear as well. Picard looks intently as the other draconequus also visibly relaxes as the other humanoid vanishes. She turns to Fluttershy before leaning down to the pony’s level. “Discord needs to tell Celestia that he can’t fix the problem on his own.” She grins savagely before turning that evil glare to Discord. “And he’s going to have to tell his.” She raises her claw and paw and makes air quotes. “Friends.” Her voice is dripping with sarcasm. “That he’s more than what they thought. But he can’t fix all their woes with a snap of his fingers.” She straightens up before looking at Discord. “I still can’t believe I was worried about you when you disappeared for a thousand years.”

Picard holds up a hand. “Disappeared? Q? What? How?”

She turns to look at Picard. “Oh, Q didn’t tell you? It was a trivial amount of time to a Q. But Q here…”

“Discord.”

She rolls her eyes. “Fine, here you are Discord, lord of chaos. He had disappeared. No Q could find him. We in the Continuum really didn’t have any idea what happened to him. We just figured he’d wait a few centuries and decide to blow up a star or something stupid to announce his presence.” She straightens up and stalks towards Discord. “Imagine our surprise that he was on this little pocket of the universe. Sealed in stone. And how he advocated for the Continuum to not come in and destroy your world, given the fact that you ponies had the ability to imprison a Q against his will. The ponies have potential, they could be peers.” She scoffs. “I’ve seen nothing to convince me of that possibility.”

Picard frowns. “Sealed in stone?”

Discord turns and crosses his hands over his chest. “It was trivial, only a thousand years. I could do that standing on my head.” To emphasize this, he removes his head and places it on the ground before stepping onto his head and standing on it, arms spread wide.

Picard turns to Fluttershy. “When was he let out of the stone?”

Fluttershy squeaks, flinching back. “He escaped a bit over six years ago.” She narrows her eyes. “Then we sealed you back, the Elements captured you again.”

Discord waves his paw, his head now properly back on his shoulders. “Well, that time I knew what was coming, how powerful the Elements were.” He looks down at Fluttershy. “You only captured part of me, the rest of me, what you would know as Q, was away, off world, and out of the system. I knew if I came back, I would get sucked back into that statue, and I would have been frozen there until you girls released me.”

“So, you escape from stone here in Equestria. Then you immediately start harassing us? That was about the same time frame as the Farpoint mission.”

Discord’s eyes flick between Picard and Fluttershy. “I don’t answer to you, Picard.” He snaps his claw and with a flash of light, all of them are in the Canterlot Castle. Discord sighs heavily. “Well, there are the Royal Sisters.” He growls softly.

Celestia seems to have a smile on her face as she walks slowly towards them. As she gets closer, the smile falters a bit as the shorter draconequus stands up, putting her hands on her hips. Eris looks back at Discord. “Oh, look. It’s Celestia and Luna doing that wavy mane thing again. Honestly, I think they looked cuter as foals with the pink and blue manes…”

Celestia blinks as she looks at the two draconequus, focusing on Eris. “Eris, why have you returned?”

“Discord and Q business, nothing that concerns lower beings like you. Unless you are trying to seduce Q again.”

Celestia takes a step back. “I…NEVER…”

“That’s right, you lack anything he would actually be interested in.” Eris says flippantly before disappearing in a flash of light.

Picard looks at Discord. “She’s jealous?”

Discord facepalms. “You don’t know the half of it.”

Picard looks down at Fluttershy. “Yet she’s not jealous of Fluttershy.”

Discord chuckles. “She thinks that Fluttershy is just as short lived as the rest of the ponies. If she knew that Fluttershy is just as eternal as Celestia is. If she did, she would be.”

Picard looks down at the yellow Pegasus for a long moment before clearing his throat. “Princess Celestia. I was quite surprised to find we have a mutual acquaintance.”

Celestia frowns, confusion plain on her face before Picard gestures to Discord. That gets her to flinch, “How?”

Picard nudges Discord, forcing him to step forward, his head held low. “Princess Celestia. I seem to have a confession to make.

***

Maud Pie exits the holodeck where Pinkie Pie has been working to feed the crew of this ship, smacking her lips appreciatively. Her sister has done her usually exemplary job of cooking a wonderful meal, and she got to hug her sister. Something she rarely misses the opportunity to do. She stops for a moment, inspecting the metal framing of the deck she is on. When she had arrived on board the Enterprise, the hooman in the transporter room had informed her of places that were off limits due to dangers, and showed her and the other ponies that beamed aboard the signs to look for to avoid. She runs a hoof gently along the metal, admiring its structure. She pushes hard, noting that the structural strength of the metal is quite good. She was told it is an alloy of metals, called duranium. She should ask if some of her excavation tools could be made of this metal. Steel is just too soft for some of the work she does. She mentally sighs and walks through the endless corridors of the enormous starship. And to think, just a matter of days ago, the ponies had no idea there was intelligent life outside of their little world.

She turns a corner, she was told there are four holodecks on this level of the starship. Making things out of hard light, that’s just amazing to the gray earth pony. She glances up at the display of this other holodeck she’s standing before. Everything is so high for these bipedal creatures of the Federation. She couldn’t read the display, but after a few moments, the computer seems to notice a pony is looking and shifts the display to ponish script, getting Maud’s eyes to widen. How interesting, the computer notices everything. Her eyes scan across the display. Calistenics program? Level Two? She scans the rest of the display, looking to see if the doors are locked or any privacy is requested. She nods in satisfaction before standing before the large doors. “Computer, please open the door.”

With a chirp, the door clicks loudly with a hiss before what sounds like a wagon wheel spinning quickly as the door slides smoothly open. She takes a moment to look at the door before she steps into the holodeck. Looking around curiously, she stops to contemplate the scene before her. Lush jungle plants, to her nose smell alive, though a little off. Ruins of old buildings, yet this is inside a starship orbiting her home world. The sound of the door closing gets her to glance behind her. As the two halves of the door meet, the wall and door disappear, apparently looking deeper into this jungle. Her ears perk as she hears what seems to be fighting seems to be going on. She walks quietly through the lush greenery, picking her path carefully to avoid making excessive noise. As she rounds a very convincingly weathered structure she can see a relatively large open area, two creatures are fighting, one with a long curved blade, sweat dripping from his bony brow. The other seems to be in some sort of armor, and actually has an insectoid appearance. The darker one, he has almost a mane with as long as the hair on his head is, gets the insectoid in the mandibles with the blunt back of the weapon, which he flips around and catches the creature behind the leg. A hard pull has the creature on its back. Though it only takes an instant before it’s on its feet and slams him in the face. He staggers back, blinking before whirling with that blade, neatly taking the creature’s arm off at the elbow before a spinning kick has it sliding along the ground before stopping at Maude’s hooves. She contemplates the creature for a moment before it disappears.

“What are you doing here? Ponies for the colonization efforts are supposed to be in the conference rooms for education.” He breathes heavily, blood trickling down from his nose.

Maud tilts her head to the side. “I’m not here for that. I came here to visit my sister, Pinkie Pie.”

That gets the tall humanoid to step back. “You are related to her?”

“Sister.”

He blinks a few times. Then whirls around as another creature, this one more reptilian in shape, charges at him. He braces himself and lowers his body as the creature rushes towards him. This time, he reaches to the small of his back, pulling out a wickedly curved knife, swinging it and shredding the front of the leather armor of his opponent. He reverses the blade and plunges it into the heart of the reptilian creature. Maud watches as the creature slowly collapses and disappears like the previous one. “Computer, pause program.” The computer chimes in acknowledgement before the humanoid turns back around. “I am Lieutenant Worf. Chief of Security.”

She looks him up and down. “You are not a…” She narrows her eyes. “Hoo mon?”

He shakes his head. “No, I am a Klingon.”

“Different. Interesting. Training?”

He stands straighter. “Yes. Klingons are a warrior race. We live for honor and battle.”

She walks over, noticing a weapon on the ground. “And this is?”

“That is a Vulcan weapon, called a lirpa.” She reaches out to pick it up. “Be careful, they are quite…” She picks it up, rearing up on two hooves to inspect it. “…Heavy.” His eyebrows rise.

She shifts it from side to side. “Heavy? Should be heavier. Feels weak.”

“They are for combat.”

She gives it a swing, shattering the steel weighted end against a large rock, shaking her head. “They would be more effective if they were made of a denser material with an orthorhombic crystalline structure to allow for greater tensile strength and impact resistance. Add tungsten to the core.”

He looks at the remains of the weapon in the pony’s hooves. “I suppose you are right. I’ve noticed that Applejack and Pinkie Pie.” He mouth sours at the odd names he is saying before blinking and continuing. “Are exceedingly strong. Are all ponies very strong?”

She tilts her head. “No.”

He waits a moment for her to continue, then he clears his throat. “So, just the ponies without wings or horns?”

“Depends.”

After a long moment of silence, the Klingon warrior reaches down and picks up the longer curved blade. “Well, if you will excuse me. I would like to continue with my exercise.”

“I see,” Maud says tiling her head with what could almost be considered a grin, if her expression changed at all. “Would you mind another? While rocks and minerals are my true interest, my sister says I should try new things.”

“You?” Worf lets out a loud belly laugh, “I was under the assumption that ponies are peaceful. Passive.” He says with a small sneer.

“I work alone. A lot of things try to kill me. I cannot be weak.”

Worf blinks a few times, leaning down a bit to look at the pony. “That is sound knowledge.”

“It is true we have never started a war. But we have had wars visited upon us. Princess Celestia has always made sure that any creature who thinks Equestria is a target is rather violently dissuaded.”

“Impressive. With ponies like you at the front lines? Not your magic users?”

“Each tribe contributes in their own way,” She says with a nods, “If you wish to continue, I would find it interesting to join you.”

“You would need a weapon.” He looks down. “Unless your hooves are weapons enough.”

“My hooves are sufficient in most cases. I hit hard. I like maces.” She looks up, projecting her voice. “Computer, are you listening?”

“Affirmative.”

“Are you familiar with pony measurements?”

“Affirmative.”

“Good, make me a long hammer. The head should be one and a half hoofs in radius, three hooves long with a three hoof pick on the other end. Overall length should be twice the length of my foreleg. The head should be a hyperdense metal, roughly five stone in weight. Hyperdense tungsten would be ideal. Shaft of old growth hickory wood.”

The computer chirps and chimes for a moment before the air shimmers before her and the hammer appears. She reaches out and picks it up before twirling it around her body quickly. She looks at Worf. “Let’s rock.”

Worf smiles savagely. Twirling his bat’leth as he moves to cover the pony’s rear. “Computer. Resume program.”

Chapter 8

Captain’s log, supplemental. Nearly two weeks into our mission to Equestria, what we have learned of the ponies and their world has been an education for us all. I have met with the leaders of other nations that coexist with the ponies, including the minotaurs, the griffons, and the hippogriffs. Most have expressed horror as to what it means for the approach of their world to the planet of Betazed, and have pledged to not only help with our efforts to avert this crisis, but also to join with Celestia and the ponies in building a viable colony on the somewhat nearby system that has been chosen for them to colonize. To that end, there are now nine federation starships in orbit, two of which are dedicated colony ships, as well as four Klingon ships and even some civilian freighters assisting in the evacuation. Our efforts to avert the disaster and prevent the necessity of destroying this beautiful world have not borne fruit as of yet, but between communication with Federation Science and the combined efforts of several different governments on Equestria, I remain hopeful.

Picard smiles genially as Queen Novu of the Hippogriffs takes her leave from the conference room, accompanied by her guard. As the door closes behind her he leans back into his seat.

“This is not easy.” And exasperated sigh has Picard turning to look at the blue alicorn sitting on the floor next to him. Princess Luna leans closer to the Captain. “You are doing fantastic, dealing with so many radically different species is difficult in the best of times.”

He nods. “And these are most certainly not the best of times.” He looks down at the pad containing his notes from the meeting. “I’m just glad that most of these rulers aren’t simply trying to carve out their own little fiefdoms in this new colony.”

That gets a laugh from the lunar princess. “A thousand years ago, that would likely have been the case, Captain. Our relations with our neighboring kingdoms has been strained at times throughout history. Though, like everycreature else, Queen Novo wants what is best for her subjects. It is quite fortunate that the planet we will be moving to has fairly extensive oceans.” She stops and looks at him. “But life on that planet is going to be interrupted by our arrival?”

Picard nods. “There is no sapient life, and minimal sea life even. We have seen this before, some planets achieve life, and plant life is abundant on this planet, but anything more than that seems to not really develop. Federation science has spent years there, cataloguing the variety of life and trying to see if some day in the distant future intelligent life would emerge. The general consensus is that it won’t. So, it was cleared for colonization some years ago. The ground is fertile for crops to be grown, and the seas can be well stocked with sea life from your world. Perhaps within a few thousand years it would be indistinguishable from Equestria.”

That gets a frown. “We are not looking to replace our home.” She looks thoughtful for a long moment before turning to look at Picard. “Assuming the worst. What will happen to our colony?”

“What will happen?” Picard furrows his brow, genuinely confused.

“Ponies, hippogriffs, minotaurs, griffons, dragons, we are used to each other, and with the calming influence of myself and my dear sister. We live in harmony for the most part. But we’ve been within this bubble for as long as we remember, longer than even most of our records. We knew the stars were magical constructs, I arranged them myself for time immemorial. And now, there’s not just life out there, but spacefaring species, with wars, and conflict, and the Borg out there. How do I protect my ponies now?”

Picard shifts in his chair uneasily. “I apologize Princess, for thrusting you and your people into this universe without any real warning. I would have loved to have found you long before this. I genuinely would have preferred to meet you under far better circumstances.”

She sidles closer to him, putting out a wing and placing it delicately on his shoulder. “I would have liked to get to know you and your people much sooner myself.” She offers him a small smile. “But I do wonder, about your prime directive. We don’t have warp drive, I don’t think this would have happened without a crisis to have to avert.”

Picard is lost in thought, looking at the lunar princess. After a long moment he shakes his head slightly. “You know, as I’ve gotten to know you ponies more, I am beginning to think that the prime directive should not apply to you. You are not backwards savages, you are certainly not unsophisticated.” He looks down. “In fact, you have mastered much of what we can do without the technology we rely on.” He looks up at her, brown eyes looking into blue-green. “I’m beginning to think Q has a point, we will have to accept the fact, that technology may not be the deciding factor for how advanced a species is.” He gestures to the room around them. “The powers you ponies have, equate to our transporters, faster than light communications, gravity manipulation, even matter transmogrification. The idea that you haven’t built starships capable of visiting other star systems is because you simply haven’t felt the need to. For example, when you teleported to your moon, our sensors showed it to be instantaneous, on the order of a tenth of a second. Light takes slightly over a second to arrive. Our sensors confirmed you exceeded the speed of light when it comes to transportation. Our transporters aren’t nearly that fast.”

“Because we were stuck in our little bubble, unaware of the universe around us.”

“That is a fair point, but assuming Equestria survives all of this, what would you ponies do?”

Luna looks thoughtful for a long moment. “My sister and I have discussed this at length, Captain. Knowing civilization is outside of our safe cocoon, that there is life that we have never conceived of, we would want to do much of what you humans do. Learn as much as we can, get to know our neighbors, and join the galaxy around us.”

Picard nods. “I, for one, would be happy to have you join humanity and our allies…as friends.”

She narrows her eyes. “As some sort of protectorate world?”

He shakes his head. “Oh, no, Princess. You may not have mastered starship design, but culturally you get along with vastly different species and have earned the respect of some very disparate powers on your world. And not through holding them hostage with your control of your sun and moon. I had assumed that your power over the others would produce a chilling effect on potential aggressors, but your sister and you have dealt diplomatically with others as equals, and shown them compassion and friendship. You act truly enlightened, and as far as I’m concerned, deserve to petition to join the Federation as full members.”

That gets a blush from the princess. “Thank you, Captain.” She tilts her head slightly and a bit of a laugh enters her voice. “Perhaps in not too much time, we will have ponies among the crews of your starships.” She shrugs her wings before folding them at her sides. “You never know, Earth ponies are wondrous at building, we might decide to build our own starships. We apparently have some supplies of dilithium on Equestria, perhaps we will be joining the galactic community at large in not too long a time.”

“It would be my distinct pleasure to welcome you to space faring, Princess.” He looks over at the desk. “That wasn’t there before.” A large cookie is sitting on the desk, wrapped in cellophane with a big red bow attached and a note attached. He clears his throat before reading out loud. “The Continuum so loves when you prove you aren’t some simple minded fruit loving ape. By the way, here, I am Discord, not Q.

PS grapes are fruit, right?”

Princess Luna’s magic pulls the cookie gently from his grasp before stripping the wrapping from it and breaking it in half. She floats half of it to her and she takes a bite as she offers the other half to the Captain. “Here is to a long working relationship.”

Picard ponders the cookie for a long moment. “Agreed, but let us fix this first problem, and save your world.”

***

Lt. Cmdr Data is busy on exactly the opposite. Deep in the bowels of the enormous starship is the weapons magazine, connected to the photon torpedo launchers. In addition to the hundreds of devices stored on racks for insertion into the launchers, there is ample work areas for specialized equipment like the probes the ship sends off on a regular basis. Many needing crew work to prepare for launch. In a sequestered area is well over a dozen torpedoes, all of them with their access hatches open. Several techs are working on the various torpedoes. Data is sitting at the computer work station, coordinating the work and providing instructions. The large door whines open, admitting a pony. Data looks up, a bit surprised that a pony is coming into a very secure area of the starship. She looks around a few times then focuses on him, trotting up and sitting before him while giving a respectable salute. “Minuette here, reporting as ordered.”

“I issued no such orders.”

She smiles brightly. “But Princess Twilight did, at Captain Picard’s request. You needed maps and our own surveys to supplement your scans of our world.” She gestures to the saddlebags wrapped around her barrel. She lights her horn and the flap opens, maps fly out, old scrolls, and even books. The volume gets Data to pause.

“That exceeded the internal volume of those bags.” He tilts his head to the side. “How?”

She giggles. “It’s a spell, the bag is bigger on the inside.” She sets down the books and rapidly stacks the scrolls. “Any third year at Celestia’s school can do it.”

He blinks. “Fascinating.” He picks up one of the large maps, his eyes roving over the painstakingly hoof drawn contours. After a few moments he puts down the map. “For a simple map, these are accurate down to the millimeter, for any species to achieve this without the aid of satellite mapping.”

“Some ponies have a knack for navigation and cartography, they spend their whole lives making and correcting maps like this, special talents work that way.” Minette says, then clears her throat, standing tall and pretending to be a teacher, “Cutie marks do not define who we are, they only express the talents we have as we come to understand them.”

He turns to his computer, bringing up a floating image of the planet. His fingers fly across the board as he enters in the new information. As the unicorn stands there watching, he finishes and leans back. The computer makes some sounds as it digests and works on the information. Then bright blooms show in several parts of the planet, causing it to break into pieces, expanding while information showing tractor beams moving pieces around. “One hundred percent fragmentation, no requirement for phaser cutting after the initial blast, all pieces within limits of available tractor beams.” After the simulation completes, the scene disappears, revealing to his eyes a pony standing there, tears streaming down her face.

Tilting her head, she sighs softly, “So, that’s how it would end huh? Not in fire or darkness, but simply calculated dissection. Then no more home.”

Data blinks, looking at the empty space that was the simulation then at her. “I am aware that some species have emotional attachments to locations, I apologize as I failed to factor that in when displaying the simulation.” Looking down at the pony, “Captain Picard ordered me to complete the preparations for if everything else we are trying to do fail. Though it is everyone’s wish that alternate means work.”

He stands up and moves over to her before crouching down to eye level with the pony. “Contingencies must be made for any event, success and failure. It is the hope of the captain, if alternate the plan succeeds, then this program can be deleted, the torpedoes unmodified and returned to storage, and we will be done.”

“All logic,” She sniffles and turns away. “Princess Twilight told me about you, you are a robot, a machine, lacking in emotional context.”

“I am an android, and while it is true, and while I lack emotion, however I do attempt to take the emotions of others into account.”

She slams a hoof into the deck. “I don’t care what you are called, you talk of hopes and wishes. How can you when you are planning on doing this, so casually” She gestures to the empty space that held the simulation. “To my world.” She stops for a long moment, “You can’t understand what I am going through, what we ponies are going through. This is a death sentence for an uncountable number of beings, and you just watch it happen. Cold, calculating, by the numbers.” She looks up at him. “If you could understand the hopes, the wishes, how could you still look at this information, and display it as if it were nothing more than a game?”

Data is momentarily at a loss for words from the emotional onslaught. Though after a few moments he blinks a few times. “Minuette, it is true that I am a machine, but my creator was human. He put within me the desire, the need, to strive to be more human. I am not merely a computational device, I am a being, and that means I work to be more than what I am. I can see how this is affecting you. I do not want to do this. I have to do this, because if our efforts fail, two planets are at risk. Billions of lives on Betazed will be lost in addition to the loss of life on your planet. Part of the reason I am working on this right now is so I can complete the work and then focus on our efforts to save your home. The captain made a decision to get the necessary planning over and done with, and will be saved as a file in our computer. With the hope that the file will be deleted while unused. Captain Picard wants to save your world, and every pony on your world.”

“But, can you?” She gestures to the torpedoes. “I’ve been told you have over a thousand members of your crew, from dozens of different worlds on your ship here. There are a good dozen here working diligently to end our world. How many do you have working to save my home?” The pony whirls away, her ears down her tail wrapped around her rear legs as she sits on the deck, emitting the occasional sniffle.

“The goal of this starship, Miss Minuette, is to save every one of you. While we are preparing for the worst possible contingency, the goal of every crewmember, every single one. Is the saving of your world.”

She sniffles again. “How can you know that? What if some hooman likes the idea of watching big explosions to destroy a world? What if they mess up what we are trying to do?”

Data sits and considers for a long moment. Finally he comes to a decision. “Come with me, let me show you something.”

As he stands up, he can hear the soft clop of her hooves on the deck as they move through the ship. In a matter of minutes, they are standing before a large door. He turns and looks at her. “Captain Picard ordered me, before he beamed down the first time to your palace, to create a program, a representation of what was to come. If his words to your princess were to fail. He wanted to be able to show her the consequences of doing nothing.” He looks at the computer terminal. “Computer, load Equestrian worst case scenario.”

The computer beeps a few times before the computer voice responds. “Program loaded and ready. You may enter.”

With a metallic whine the doors part and they enter. Data looks at the pony. “This is on the planet Betazed, near the city of Dalaria. Currently, the population of the planet is roughly one point three billion inhabitants. Go ahead and look around.” Verdant hills of lush green lay before them in holographic glory. In the near distance, a modern city is showing, in the distance vehicles can be seen moving around. And the field they are in is quite well manicured, with a small stream flowing through it and large old trees. Almost an idyllic setting for any pony or human. Minuette looks around, her ears flicking as the various sounds come to her. She smiles briefly at the android as she walks forward.

“How beautiful.” She murmurs. They continue walking and make it up over a small hill, and in the depression beyond the hill is apparently a park, families of Betazoids are enjoying a relaxing day. Children are playing on playground equipment, swinging on swings, and the joy and laughter of their lives is infectious. Minuette lets out a happy whinny as she trots around, looking at all the interesting creatures around her. Data moves easily to catch up with the small quadruped.

He points up. “Take a look, this planet has three moons, and at this time of day, two of them are visible, that one is Avandar, and the larger one is Keylandar. Your Equestrian system is only a matter of days away, but this was created before Princess Luna contracted the barrier around your world. So, that barrier is fast approaching. In fact, it has just contacted Keylandar. Look up.”

Her ears flatten back as she looks up, the small moon, nearly half the size of Equestria’s moon, is slowly breaking apart. One of the Betazoid children notices and starts to scream. In moments those screams multiply, though they don’t last. The barrier has engulfed the moon and made it disappear. The wavefront is rapidly heading to the planet. Minuette flinches as the barrier hits the planet. Instantly everything becomes silent as the city is utterly flattened from the impact. Her head rotates around as she watches the ground start to heave.

Data’s voice comes through. “The impact with the barrier stripped the atmosphere from the planet, only those in protected enclosures had any chance of survival. But that is not all.” He raises his voice a bit. “Computer, advance time to the approach of the planet.”

The computer chirps and the world reforms around them. Data’s voice continues. It has been three weeks, four days since the impact of the barrier. Your home is now approaching.” He points. “Look.”

Unwillingly, she looks up. His voice buzzes in her ears. “Sadly, while your home doesn’t have to deal with the effects of the collision of the barrier. Equestria will not go unscathed. It will not hit this planet directly, but the third moon of Betazed, Merandar, will not be so lucky.” As they watch, her home planet is dealt a glancing blow by the moon, which had been somewhat sheltered by the planet as the barrier passed through, now slams into the surface of Equestria. Oceans boil and a plume of dust that defies all reason erupts, along with a column of fire from the cracked crust of the planet. “And even if the moon did not hit your home, it would not be fine. Two very large gravity wells are nearly colliding, the gravity from your planet, with this planet in a weakened state, Equestria’s gravity would rip the crust of this world, ending any lives that potentially survived the collision with the barrier. And then we have to think about what happens to Equestria, the same forces that rip the crust of this planet to pieces would be affecting your home. Ground quakes beyond anything you could measure, mountains falling, new mountains being driven up…”

“NO! No! no no no no! Why are you showing me all of this?” She screams, turning away.

“Minuette, this is what we are working to avoid. Nothing we are doing is to have any desire to destroy, only to save. Your lives, and the lives of the people here. That is why we are doing this. That is why we are taking measures to prevent this from happening.” He squats down to get eye level with her. “This is a real danger to your people and mine.”

“Bridge to Commander Data.” Riker’s voice comes across.

He stands up and touches his com badge. “Data here.”

“The Princesses have arrived, it’s time for a status update.”

“Understood. I am in the holodeck with Minuette.”

Silence at the other end for a long moment. Then they hear Riker sputter. “Minuette? How? Why?”

“The pony, Minuette, Commander. I am on my way. Data out.” He looks down at the pony. “I am sorry, Minuette, our desire is to prevent this from happening. In fact, we are going to update your princesses on how much we have been working. My work on our contingency plan is complete, the modifications to our torpedoes will be done by the end of the day. I will focus everything in my abilities to ensure that this.” He spreads out a hand, showing the devastation of the planet. “Does not happen.”

She sniffles a few times. “You promise?”

He nods. “I promise.” He takes a moment to contemplate the vista around him. “I must go.”

***

The conference room situated behind the bridge of the Enterprise is more full than usual for staff meeting with the addition of Princesses Celestia and Luna, as well as Twilight Sparkle and Discord, in addition to the usual staff. Data strides through the door and quickly finds a seat.

Captain Picard stands up and stands before all those assembled. “We’ve had two weeks of work. I’ve invited the Princesses and the Element bearers aboard to hear what we’ve been working on.”

Twilight Sparkle is the first to speak up. “Thank you, Captain. When I first came aboard, I was tasked with research, to look for a magical solution from every source we could find. I have used the Enterprise computers to assist me when it comes to magical research. Your systems have made the research side very time efficient. Thousands of volumes and magical tomes have been scanned into the computer system and we’ve been cross referencing and learning of branches of magic that I’ve never even known about. Even if we don’t find a solution in the magic of Equestria, our research capabilities have been magnified by orders of magnitude.” She blushes and takes a step back. “I was hoping, if we save our world, if some of these computer systems be installed?”

Captain Picard smiles. “This has been an unusual first contact situation, Princess. But part of our normal procedures is to install communications equipment at the primary government’s behest so you can be reached by subspace. I don’t see why a computer system wouldn’t be included with a subspace transceiver array when necessary second contact procedures are taken care of. Another ship, with the necessary components available, can be dispatched to fulfill that.” He glances at Princess Celestia. “With your permission, of course, Princess.”

Celestia nods. “Twilight’s authority is as good as mine in such cases, Captain. But of course, you have my permission as well.”

Picard picks up the PADD from his place and taps a few notes before looking back at Twilight. “Any results from your research.”

The air is expelled from the younger alicorn’s lungs in a big huff. “No, Captain. While research is not complete, in fact, it will honestly take years to research everything. Nothing about dealing with something as big as our entire planet and sun and moon. It’s just too big. I’ve researched time travel, I’ve researched even trying to make the planet insubstantial, but the problem there is the barrier would have to be shut down completely, and that doesn’t negate the gravity effects, which would be just as devastating.” She sighs and looks down. “Research is still ongoing, Captain.”

Picard nods. “I do not expect instant solutions, Princess. If it were easy, it would already be done.” He turns to his chief engineer. “We are working on our own solutions. As we’ve had Princess Luna retract the barrier to buy us time, we were told by Engineer Barclay that we might be able to push the system into subspace?”

Geordie looks at his PADD. “Captain, Barclay and I have run the numbers. Generating the field is possible, but making it big enough to encompass not only the planet, but the moon and sun at the same time.” He sighs and shakes his head. “We are talking a field size of roughly four hundred thousand kilometers. The ship, even every ship in Starfleet, can’t make a field that big even working together. We have thought of using the moon as a focus for the warp energy.” He glances at Barclay standing with a few other engineers against the wall. “But we had to put the idea aside because the energy requirements would be too great. And it would have likely only affected the moon.”

Barclay jerks a bit as though he wants to speak. But he subsides quickly, though Rainbow Dash notices. She speaks up. “I think Barclay has got more information on this, Twi.”

Barclay wilts as nearly every eye on the room focuses on him. “Geordie is right, w…w…w…w.”

“Is okay, take a breath,” Dash says putting her wing on his shoulder. “Talk to me.”

He stops and takes a deep breath, looking directly at Rainbow Dash. “We calculated the power requirements, and even using the crystal in the moon as a focus, we would be short by several orders of magnitude.”

“But…” Rainbow Dash says softly, tilting her head as she focuses her ears on him, her wings folding back to her side.

He looks down at her. “But….” He she starts before he looks up at the Captain, gulping he stammers again, “W…w…w…we might have a solution that might be able to fit within available power.”

Rainbow Dash lifts her wing to block his view and draw his attention back to her, “You got this Reg.”

He stops and takes a big breath. “I’ve been working with some of the unicorns, Lemon Hearts, Twinkle Shine, and Minuette. As well as additional more detailed scans of the moon and the crystal structure inside it. It may be possible. Yes, the effect would be centered on the moon, but we believe that the field can be made to encompass the entire system.” He looks down. “But I don’t know if the field simply being around them would bring them along. My calculations are also confounded by the sun.”

“The sun is my domain, Captain.” Princess Celestia speaks up. “I guide it daily.”

“With all due respect, Princess.” Geordie says. “Dragging the sun with us is a lot more than encouraging it around your planet every day.”

Twilight brightens. “We can combine all of our magic, through the Elements, we can help with that.

Luna frowns. “I know how much the Elements can do. There is a possibility that the sun could be dragged with the moon. But even then, I don’t think the Elements have enough power.” She turns and looks at the engineer. “Do you have a way to send coherent energy? I’ve heard of the tractor beams or even the phasers. That they send energy at a prodigious rate.”

“All energy is not the same. Phasers are particle beam weapons, tractor beams use gravimetric energy. Are we talking sending energy to Princess Celestia here?” At her nod, he frowns. “Your thaumic energy, we don’t have the capability to make it. At all. We can send energy from different parts of the EM spectrum, but your thaumic energy is a completely different wavelength and composition. I’m sorry, Princess.”

Barclay jumps as if he was goosed. “Actually, sir. We can.”

Rainbow Dash giggles a bit, trying her best to look innocent.

“The main deflector.” He squeaks. “We’d have to reconfigure the beam emitters and add a field converter to the mix, but I believe we can convert electroplasma to thaumic energy in sufficient quantities.”

“A field converter? What exactly is that?” Picard asks.

Barclay shakes his head. “Conversion of energy is something the ponies are quite good at. We’d have to craft a crystal, Lemon Hearts was talking about converting electroplasma to thaumic energy a few days ago. She ended up making one that worked pretty well.” He looks at Twilight. “Well, until it blew up, that is, but I think we just need better control of the input energy.”

Geordie sighs. “And there’s the rub. To build a crystal of that size is larger than any industrial replicator on board. So, it’ll have to be grown, tooling can go rather quickly, but building that could take weeks, if not months.”

“Merde.” Picard says softly.

Barclay smiles. “Not necessarily. We don’t have to cover the entire deflector with the crystal. Just over the five high power emitters. That could cut down on manufacturing time.”

Rainbow Dash nods, "You're doing awesome."

Geordie nods. “It might, but we’d be cutting it close.” He looks at the Captain. “I mean, really close.”

Celestia squeals. “Oh, but you forget, Captain. We can make the crystals. Well, not in Equestria, but in the Crystal Empire. The crystal ponies are the best at making precision crystals. Why don’t we go down and talk to Princess Cadance again, and see about building those crystals.”

Discord huffs. “When in doubt, change the laws of reality to suit your needs. So, what about the planet, my little Barkley?”

Barclay looks up at the draconequus, whose head is nearly brushing the ceiling. “It will be enveloped in the field. It’s not emitting its own energy. It should be brought along for the ride.”

“Should be, might be. That’s not will. The crystal in the moon doesn’t have warp coils, it won’t be as efficient as you seem to think it will be.” He smiles but there is no friendship in this smile.

Barkley smiles back, showing exactly the same amount of friendship in his own smile. “Won’t need it, we aren’t going to warp, and we aren’t going far, we are just making an artificial graviton ellipse.”

Chuckling the draconequus smiles almost evilly, “And just think, just a year ago, that level of thinking was beyond the gasp of humanity.”

“Hey!” Dash says flaring her wings, “Be nice, he’s trying.”

Picard looks around. “So, this looks doable?”

Geordie nods.

“Make it so.”

Chapter 9.

The turbolift opens up, allowing one human, one android, and two ponies to emerge. Captain Picard turns and heads down the corridor. Princess Celestia and Rainbow Dash walk side by side as they make their way towards the transporter room. The solar princess looks down at Rainbow Dash, finally reaching out a wing and nudging the smaller pony to get her attention. “I noticed how you are very helpful with that human. Mr. Broccoli?”

“It’s Barclay, Princess.” Dash says softly before looking down. “I don’t know, he reminds me of Fluttershy many years ago. I dunno.” She huffs. “I just hope this works.”

Celestia looks at the captain, chatting with his android crewmember as they walk. “With luck this Barley? Barkley’s plan will work.” She looks back down at the pegasus. “But back to this Mister Barclay.” She sticks out her tongue a bit at the unfamiliar word. “Has no one here tried to be friends?”

Dash looks up, “Trying to get used to saying that word?”

She nods, “Many of these names are so different then I am used to.”

“He’s very shy at first, but if you can make friends with him, it’s like he transforms…His genius comes out and…” She smiles brightly.

And gets an answering smile in return. “It’s almost as though…friendship is magic, isn’t it?”

Rainbow Dash’s wings spread in surprise. “You are right, princess.” She looks down. Grumbling, “Oh great, now I’m sounding like an egghead.” She gripes.

Celestia laughs as they enter the transporter room. Captain Picard stops as they wait. He turns and looks at the doors to the transporter room. “The rest should be showing up momentarily.”

Celestia nods. “Your turbolift systems are so much more efficient than the lifts we have in places like Manehattan.”

In moments, Twilight Sparkle and the rest of her friends enter the transporter room. Though only Celestia, Picard, Data and Twilight step onto the pad. Twilight looks at her friends. “I’ll see you home after we’ve talked to Princess Cadance.” With a command from the Captain, they dematerialize.

And appear in the square in front of the Crystal castle. Picard takes a moment to take it in. “How beautiful.” He breathes.

Twilight’s tail is wagging a bit. “My sister-in-law was going to be on one of the ships, but she said she would wait until we have no more choice before she boards.” Her tail droops. “But her husband, my brother, is on board the Farragut with their daughter. That ship is leaving tonight.”

Picard moves up next to her. “Princess, with luck, she will be reunited with him before too long.” She smiles tremulously at him before walking through the great doors and walking up the stairs. It’s only a few minute before Picard gets to witness the two alicorns dance a greeting. He smiles as the pink alicorn turns and looks at him.

“So, this is the human that I’ve heard about. Captain?” She says softly.

He nods, though he’s watching the princess closely, she looks quite tired. Her smile, to the untrained eye, looks genuine and friendly. But he can see she’s barely holding things together. He clears his throat. “Good day, Princess Cadance.”

She nods regally. She’s nearly as well versed as Celestia when it comes to talking to others. He looks at Data and continues. “We may have come across a solution. We can go over the technical specifics at your leisure. But we are here because we have need of something the Crystal Empire can provide.”

She blinks. “But of course, to save our world, we will do anything within our power, Captain.”

He nods. “My officer here, Lt. Commander Data, has the technical specifications of crystals that need to be manufactured as quickly as possible. They will enable the conversion of the energy that our ship produces to what is essentially your magic power. We will need to send that power to Princess Celestia for her to bring the sun along with this graviton ellipse.”

She nods. “I will call our best crystal crafters. You will have your crystals, Captain.”

***

Lemon Hearts is a happy pony, normally she’s called to be a party planner for elite banquets, conventions, and other tasks where she has to worry about hundreds of small things at once. Today however, she only needs to worry about a few things at a time.

She’s heard the humans groan when it comes to moving about in the Jeffries tubes, the connecting tunnels that run through the ship and contain all the technical parts that make a starship run. About them being cramped, taking forever to move through, and the worst thing ever, trying to lay cables. Ducking her head she walks along the tube with ease making sure to watch her horn so she doesn’t bump it on ceiling of the tube, but otherwise it’s no problem. There’s actually enough room for 2 ponies or even 3 foals to walk down these side-by-side if they wanted.

Though with the human’s larger bodies, and their strange need to walk bipedal she could see how they would not like crawling through these access corridors. She has a modified saddle bag strapped to her barrel, and spools of optronic data cables is on each side of her body, unreeling as she heads towards the end of the tube. She turns the corner and chief engineer Geordie LaForge is sitting there, a large access hatch open before him. She lights her horn and floats the nearly empty spools off her back. “They are hooked up, just like you asked, right is plugged into R45 the left into R31.”

He looks up at her from the system console opening, holding an isolinear chip in one hand, with an isodyne relay adaptor, and a small crystal attached to the top. Sliding the chip into place it lights up, the crystal glowing a soft pink, “That’s a 150-meter crawl through a several zig zagging tunnels and up two levels. That takes me almost ten minutes to crawl.”

She giggles and shakes her head, “Pegasi might have a problem with this. It’s too cramped for them to use their wings. But keeping my horn down, it’s not too bad.” She floats the spools over to him. “Sides I’m pretty flexible. Though those ladders aren’t the easiest to navigate with hooves.” She holds up a yellow hoof to him with a giggle. “But I managed.”

He nods. “Compared to crawling through the tubes, it’s like you flew through.” He pulls the rest of the cable off the spools and finds the ends before carefully fitting them into a port. “Okay, they are in D18. That should enable x-control of the five emitters once we have the crystals in their frames.” He looks back at the entrance to the Jeffries tube in deflector control and raises his voice. “How are we doing for the frames for the crystals?”

One of his junior engineers pokes her head into the tube. “We are almost ready to do the EVA to mount them. The replicator is finishing up the last one.”

He nods. “And it included the technical specs that I uploaded, the servo controls for focusing that was sent up from the planet?”

She nods. “Most recent modifications to the design were incorporated.” She withdraws quickly.

Minuette steps up next to him, another set of optronic cables strapped to her body, eliciting a smile from the human. “Now we will be able to handle the Y transitions on the frames with that setup.”

Lemon hearts smiles at her friend as they both load up more cables as Lyra comes into the Jeffries tube and sits down easily. “Hey, Geordie. What does this thing do? You called it a navigational deflector.”

He watches as the other two ponies disappear into the rats warren of tubes that spider all over the physical structure of the nav deflector. He gratefully takes the tray of isolinear chips from the magic of the mint green pony. “Well. When the ship is at high sublight, even a single atom moving at that kind of speed can damage the ship. The nav deflector uses a charged particle beam to nudge them out of the way.”

She furrows her brow in thought. “That can’t be it, your phaser output would be more than enough. But this has so much more power capabilities than your phasers.”

He nods. “That’s right, I was just getting to that. At warp, we need to watch for the same things, even transitioning through our warp bubble doesn’t cancel out their momentum, so we have to push a beam through the warp field to do the same thing, at much further distances. That takes a significant amount of energy, hence the capabilities of the deflector.”

She looks thoughtful. “Oh.” Then she blinks. “But what if it’s too big? You are talking about going multiple times the speed of light.”

He nods again. “Oh, inside the deflector are our long range sensors. They track along our course and detect anything possibly in our line of travel, and if it’s too big for the nav deflector to nudge out of the way, we also have navigational shields for the smallest particles that the sensors don’t see, and for the largest obstructions, the computer will adjust our course, at those speeds, the smallest fraction of a degree change will cause us to clear even fairly large debris with a wide margin. Those are input automatically into the helm while we are at warp.”

“That’s pretty cool. And now, you are going to turn your ship into a gigantic mana generator for Princess Celestia, so she can bring the sun along?”

He nods. “Based on the design of the crystals, the conversion rate isn’t going to be perfect, so we are going to generate a lot of excess heat. That will be dumped, though our cryoplant is going to be working overtime, keeping the crystals from cracking from the excess heat, and keeping the warp core from overheating.”

Lyra frowns. “What happens if the warp core overheats?” He brings his fists together and spreads them quickly, simulating an explosion. Getting her to shudder. “So, note to self, don’t let the warp core get too hot. Got it.” She stands up, and turns with a flick of her tail. “I’ll help with getting the frames to the airlock. It’s too bad you don’t have any pony sized space suits. I would love to know what it’s like to walk on the outside of a starship.”

He smiles. “Don’t worry, Lyra. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.” He turns back to his work. “I should call Utopia Planitia fleet yards. I found who the Jeffries tubes were designed for. Ponies.” He grumbles.

***

Princess Luna is a ball of energy. The thought of having a solution to this crisis has excited her. And her role in the solution is daunting. Crystals store and focus energy. The trouble is, they are normally used far differently. The one in the moon is maintaining the barrier that protects their little star system and keeps them safe from the rest of the universe. The Enterprise is going to put warp energy into this crystal from their engines. The humans have shown something that science on Equestria understood as possible, but hadn’t been able to isolate. That is gravitons, the medium as to how gravity is transmitted in the same way photons are the medium as which energy in the electromagnetic spectrum is transmitted. The crystal in the moon can do the job, but it needs an enormous initial charge. Getting that charge to not dissipate as it’s being infused is her job. She looks up at the control crystal in the chamber, her magic encasing the crystal as she works on testing the structure. She smiles as the finally lets go of the magic.

The sound of the Enterprise transporter beam breaks her concentration as a human appears. This one is female, as best as the pony princess can tell. She nods regally as she brings up a clipboard and a quill as she writes a few notes.

“Good day, Princess. How are you feeling?”

She smiles as the finally lets go of the magic.

Luna blinks. “Most humans would be more interested in how goes my work.”

The woman smiles. “I’m not most humans, I’m only half human, actually. I’m also half Betazoid.”

That gets a flinch from the alicorn. “And our world is threatening yours. I’m so…” She stumbles to a stop at her held up hand.

“I know you have no intent to harm my home, Princess. No apologies are necessary. I was asked by Captain Picard to come down and talk to you. I am the ship’s counselor. My duties are to the mental health of the crew and of those we encounter where applicable. Captain Picard was concerned about you. We have no doubt whether you are up to the task ahead. But we want you to know that we are here for you, Princess.”

Luna blinks. “I…”

Troi smiles. “I know, you are royalty, you have obligations. You are not usually encouraged to feel your emotions. Standing here, even without my empathic abilities, we know of the emotional burden this place means to you. A thousand years here, trapped in rage and hate. A thousand years of pain. I want you to know that you can come to myself or Captain Picard any time you need to.”

Luna stands there for a long moment, a single forehoof raised. She deliberately puts it down and bows before the ships counselor. “Thank you. My duties have been consuming me as of late. I would normally confide in my sister.” She looks down. “But with the events of meeting your crew and working to get this plan working. I have been neglecting myself.” She raises her head and tilts it a bit. “Why is it that I feel…?”

A knowing smile from the counselor. “You feel you can open up to me?” At the alicorn’s nod her smile widens. “I wish I could say it’s my nature. And while that is a factor, I’ve been trained to help for many years. I am here to help you, Princess. As we all are. I also know that a few engineers will be beaming to your sanctum here, some monitoring equipment will need to be set up before we work to move your system. Captain Picard wanted me to ensure you were ready for what might seem as a bit of an invasion of your personal space.”

Luna nods. “Thank you, the priority of saving my world supersede anything else, I would think.”

That gets a head tilted slightly. “But this was your prison, Princess. This cannot proceed without your help and your consent.”

That gets the princess to blink. “Wait, what? You are saying that you need my approval to do the work?”

Deanna nods. “Most certainly. There are definite time pressures involved, but we must consider your feelings on the matter. One of the reasons larger starships have counselors aboard. To work with those involved in crisis situations and make sure that we are proceeding ethically and considering the reality of how the host civilization is reacting to the situation. I have spent many days in the last weeks talking to many of the ponies involved in the colonization efforts. I was actually quite excited to meet you personally, Princess.”

“Me?”

“Oh yes, the way the ponies speak of you and your sister. I know you try to discourage the ponies from venerating you as gods, but you are nearly on that high of a pedestal with many of the ponies.”

Luna turns away. “I’m no god.” She grumbles.

“I know that, the ponies know you are not. But your status among them is definitely important. Many are volunteering to join the colonization and evacuation effort not in an effort to save their lives. They firmly believe the planet will be saved, because of you and your sister, along with the Element bearers. Twilight and her friends.”

“Then why agree to disrupt their lives? Move to a whole new world? Get on strange starships to go where they don’t have any idea what’s going to happen?”

That gets a smile from the hybrid officer. “Because they trust your word. You asked for volunteers, to strike out and go boldly where you ask them to go, into the unknown because you believe it’s best for them. They trust you, Princess.”

“They trust my sister.”

“No, Princess, they trust both of you. You are the princess of the night, you are just as vital as your sister when it comes to Equestrian society. If our efforts fail, and she is killed, they all will look to you. They will need your leadership, your guidance, to make the colony work.”

“I don’t want to leave my sister.” Luna mutters softly. “We are equals. She does not command me.”

“You intend to stay? Face the same fate as her?”

Luna turns away. “My sister has implored me, she wants me to go. I refused, so many times. But she insisted, she prevailed upon me. In the end, I promised her. If she must stay, I must go. I don’t like that promise, but I will follow it.” She turns back to Troi. “If the command to fire, to end this world, must be uttered. I will do so, with tears in my eyes, and grief in my heart.”

Troi blinks. “You? Princess? What about Captain Picard?”

“I talked to him. He understands why I must be the one to do it.”

Troi stands there for a long moment before taking a few steps towards the alicorn and placing a hand on the pony’s withers. “We won’t have to have that command be uttered, Princess. Our engineers are working with you ponies. We will save your world.”

Luna glances at the Betazoid. “I’m not going to ask if you promise.”

Troi smiles. “If it’s within our power, it will happen, Princess.”

***

“No! No No No No! It won’t work!” Growls Discord. He’s standing in main engineering of the Enterprise, standing before the main display, showing calculations. Next to him is the purple alicorn he’s disagreeing with. He turns to look at her. “The Enterprise plan can work, but it will turn every pony and most other creatures into toothpaste, and not the fun, tasty, strawberry, herring, jalapeno kind.”

“Wait, what?” Urping once she covers her mouth with a forehoof, “Strawberry, what? Ugh, no, no no, never mind, I don’t want to know.” Twilight shakes her head, her ears flicking back and forth. “Barclay showed me the math, the planet will be enveloped by the field. Princess Celestia will have to ensure the sun is near the moon at the right time, but…”

“But nothing, I’m not contesting that the field will envelop the planet. It most certainly will. But have you considered what will happen as the field expands over the planet? It’s not instantaneous, it’s limited to the speed of light. Gravitons have no mass in and of themselves, so they move at the same speed photons do. But here’s the rub, it’s going to take almost a tenth of a second for the entire planet to be engulfed by the field.”

Twilight blinks. “A tenth of a second isn’t all that bad.”

Discord growls. “It is when you consider how much gravitational shear that would mean.” He taps his screen. Planets aren’t solid rock. They have the core, and the mantle, which we won’t worry about because of how dense they are, all that will do would cause waves in the magma, they’ll dissipate. But the crust, where all the ponies live. Where all the life of the planet lives, will be subject to in excess of fifty times gravity. No matter how short that is, it’s going to crush every building, and every living thing is going to be turned into a puddle of goo.” He whirls away. “If the continuum would allow me the power, I’d just protect the planet, and make sure the field doesn’t affect the planet.” He turns back to the alicorn. “But I CAN’T DO THAT!” He waves a paw and a chair appears for him to flop into, crossing his arms.

“Awww the omnipotent Discord is chafing at the limitations he’s having to work under?” The new voice gets both to turn as a bright flash of white has Eris appearing, sitting in a revolving chair, letting it spin slowly back and forth.

He glances back at the engineers working at their stations, the chief engineer is in his office, apparently monitoring everything going on with the starship’s systems. He bends down and growls menacingly. “As it is, I don’t have enough power. And without protecting the planet, this whole exercise becomes moot.” He turns away, his nose high. “As if the continuum has any care about anything outside their realm of existence. There’s a whole universe out here as our playground. And they don’t care about anything else.”

Eris stands up, the chair disappearing. “You can be as frustrated as you like, Discord. But you have to understand. They aren’t making it impossible to solve this problem. It’s not truly a no-win scenario. We don’t want you to have to lose. We simply want you to have to work hard for the solution.”

Twilight snorts and takes a step forward. “You are playing with pony lives to give Discord a lesson. Just end this. He’s quite aware of his limitations here.”

Eris turns to look at Twilight. “What value is teaching him a lesson if lives aren’t on the line?” She saunters towards the other draconequus. “He has to face losing something that actually means something to him. Even if your lives are as transient as these pathetic humans, or the other species of this galaxy. You should be grateful, Discord values you ponies enough that the thought of your destruction is abhorrent to him.” She gestures. “Look at him, actual emotion. He is actually upset about this.”

Discord folds his arms. “Merely upset at the idea of losing.” He turns back to Eris. “You know I’ve never lost, anything, ever.”

That gets an evil grin. “Well, there’s a first time for everything. And it must gall you that you have to depend on these barely evolved monkeys.” She gestures to the humans in the compartment. “To save your ‘friends’.” Her mouth twists with the last word.

That gets a glower from Discord. “You know as well as I do the potential the ponies represent. If they can confine a Q against their will…” He stops, looking surprised.

Eris nods. “Their magic is more potent than even they realize. Their Elements can affect a planetary scale. And can capture a god of chaos. What might they be able to do? Given a few tens of millennia.”

“That’s what we want to find out.”

She chuckles. “Your impassioned pleas when the Continuum came to destroy utterly what could be a threat to us were persuasive, Discord. But you know we didn’t put their system into this peril.”

“I know that.” Discord snaps. “But I was lazy, and procrastinating. I should have nudge the system to where it wouldn’t have even gotten close to any inhabited system ages ago.”

“Because you want to be the one to swoop in at the last century, letting them know that you were their savior.” She rolls her eyes. “But that’s not working this time, is it?”

Geordie steps out from his office. “Do you have anything meaningful to contribute, Eris?” When she looks at him in shock. “Because if you don’t, buzz off. We are actually trying to save lives here.”

“Oh, the monkey speaks.” Eris says softly as she walks over to the human. “Have you ever considered replacing those eyes of yours?” She reaches up and snatches the VISOR off of his face, leaving perfectly normal brown eyes looking at her. “Ahh, I like that better.”

Geordie blinks a few times. “What? Huh?”

“Oh, Geordie, your eyes are beautiful.” Twilight says.

Geordie looks wildly around. “I don’t. I’ve…”

Eris twirls the VISOR on a claw. “You are dealing with the infinite. There is nothing we can’t do.” She glances at Discord. “Except when we are limited by others.” She snaps her paw and those eyes disappear, to be replaced with the milky white eyes he was born with. “But value what your species has been able to create. Born just a mere century ago, you would have been left behind.”

Geordie reaches blindly out, feeling for his VISOR. Eris takes a step back, only to have the VISOR enveloped in a purple aura and float towards the human. Eris glances at Twilight. “Spoilsport.” She growls before disappearing.

Geordie fits the visor onto his face, and when it clicks into position. He directs a dirty look at the place where the smaller draconequus was standing. “I was thinking.” He takes a few breaths to steady his emotions before looking at Discord. “We are sending energy to Celestia, to assist her with capturing the sun. Perhaps we can send energy to you as well. We can individually direct each emitter. We can send you as much as you would need.”

Discord shakes his head. “I am limited to chaos magic. And while you can detect and generate the pony’s magic, their thaumic energy. You will find that my magic is superior…”

“Superior, my plot.” Twilight snaps. “You and I both know that Celestia is well versed in chaos magic. She may not have your strength in it. But she knows the magic.”

Discord blinks. “You are saying…”

“It would be taxing for her. But we’ve calculated how much thaumic energy will make it to her. And she will have captured the sun for minutes before the ship is able to initiate the ellipse. More than enough time for her to take the thaums from the Enterprise and send you as much chaos magic as you can handle.”

Discord strokes his beard. “To think I could get charged up by the likes of…” He glances at Geordie. “Humans.” He shakes his head. “Do you think she would consent?”

“To save her ponies? To save our world? She would deal with every creature in tartarus itself gladly. And you know that, Discord.”

Discord turns to Geordie, bowing grandly. “It seems I am once again humbled by what you can do. So, we shall need to talk to the Princess of the Day.” He disappears in a flash of light.

Twilight giggles as Geordie glances at her. He shakes his head. “I think we surprised him. But you do know, with us sending that much power, someone, or some pony, is going to have to monitor the energy stream. Make sure that it’s not too much, and focused correctly.”

Twilight nods. “And I will be happy to do that.”

Chapter 10.

Captain Picard walks with two of his crew members into Twilight Sparkle’s castle. She had explained to him that the castle had been created by a magical box that all of her friends had to unlock. And that she had previously lived inside a tree that was also a library. He smiles ruefully as he makes his way into the alicorn’s lab. As he enters, he stops for a moment. Many familiar sounds are greeting him. He looks at his operations officer. “Who authorized this?”

Data nods slightly. “I did, Captain. A portable computer core along with terminals and scientific equipment were requested by Princess Twilight four days ago. I assisted with the setup of the equipment during night shift so as not to disrupt our ongoing operations.”

Twilight Sparkle steps forward. “Don’t worry, Captain. If your efforts fail, we can teleport it back up to your ship.” She gestures with a wing. “I have enlisted some ponies and taught them the basics of operating your computer systems. We are in the process of uploading as much of Equestrian knowledge and science so that our colony has as much information as possible if… If Equestria doesn’t make it.”

Picard nods. “That was an excellent idea, Princess, but I am wondering why you asked us down here and specifically asked for us.”

Twilight smiles brightly. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before! With Discord being that Q character you talked about, and with everything else going on. I don’t know how it slipped my mind, but I think we know a place where we can send ponies in addition to our new colony. Since even with all these starships in orbit, we’ll never be able to get everycreature off the planet it time. But I need more information to see if it’s viable.”

Picard tilts his head slightly. “More information?”

She nods. “When I go through, I don’t have my magic, so I can’t really do much except look around. And I don’t want to disrupt everything at Canterlot High or get everypony’s hopes up, if we can’t make it work. So, I need those.” She points.

His eyes follow her pointing at Lt. Commander Data, specifically at the tricorder hanging on his waist. “A tricorder?”

She nods. “It’s the new ones, that can detect magic, right?” At his nod, she grins. “Perfect!” She turns and gestures for them to follow. “I went through for the first time a few years ago. I had to retrieve my crown from Sunset Shimmer. Since then, I’ve gone through a couple more times, learning everything I can about this world. But without magic…”

“Wait a moment, another world?” Geordie says. “You have another world that you can go to?”

Twilight shakes her head. “I really don’t know. I’m still trying to correlate your usage of language with mine. I guess the best way you could say it, it’s another dimension, another reality. There are those that are identical with ponies here. There’s a Twilight Sparkle there, a Rarity, a Rainbow Dash, and so many others that I know on this side. But they aren’t ponies. But on looking at them now, I would say they look like humans, like you. But different.”

Picard frowns. “Different, how?”

“They retain our unique coloring, you know how humans have limited coloring. Well, those on the other side have as many colors to their skin and their…hair, I guess it’s called…as we do here in Equestria.”

Data nods. “Pigmentation of skin is not limited among all species, Princess. There are…”

“We don’t need a lesson in pigmentation today, thank you. Mr. Data. We will be happy to help you with researching this place.”

Twilight smiles and leads them further into the lab. “If our efforts to move the planet fail. I am going to say damn the consequences and send as many ponies as can fit through the portal up until the planet is broken apart. It’s not huge, we might be able to get a few thousand through. We should have about four days from our attempt if it fails, is that correct?”

Data nods. “There was an update from Princess Cadance nine hours ago. The crystals will be complete in ninety-three hours. We will need approximately forty hours to install and test the crystals. Then we shall make the attempt.”

Twilight nods. “Good. And if things look like they will work out on the other side of the portal, I might start sending ponies through immediately. But I didn’t want to start sending them through until I got your help, to make sure that they will be safe. For all I know, the portal being destroyed might just damage, or destroy their world. I may need to dismantle the portal before the planet is destroyed to protect them from the destruction. Too many unknowns.” She stops before a horseshoe shaped mirror, along with several pieces of equipment. She reaches out and touches the reflective surface, which ripples to her touch.

Data already has his tricorder out. He blinks at his results. “Fascinating. The magic of this is off the scale. The system is trying to adjust the scale, but it might burn out the sensor crystal.” He taps the device a few times. “No, it is beyond the device’s ability to read.”

Twilight nods. “The magic of this portal is old, older than the princesses; Starswirl the Bearded discovered the magic, and built this mirror, but his surviving writings don’t tell us all the details. Will you come with me?”

Picard nods. “Lead the way, Princess.”

She smiles and steps into what seems like a mirror, the surface moving as though it were liquid as it flows around her body and when she’s fully through, the surface rebounds a bit, leaving ripples in her wake. Data pulls his tricorder back from scanning before looking at Picard. “Shall I?” He asks.

“By all means.” Picard watches in fascination as the android officer steps confidently through the mirror. He looks at Geordie, who shrugs his shoulders and follows his friend. Picard only hesitates a moment before he steps through the mirror himself.

***

Picard is on his hands and knees, trying not to vomit. “That…” He pants. “Was one of the worst experiences of my life.” He looks back at the marble base of the large statue. Data is playing his tricorder across the face of the marble while Geordie is panting next to him.

“Agreed, Captain.” His chief engineer says softly. “That was worse then an old style Klingon transporter, I felt like I was being stretched and torn apart and put back together.” He touches his VISOR looking back at the 'gateway', “Quantum fluxes, tachyons. I’m still trying to figure out what happened. That thing put out more power than a hundred warp cores. It's beyond anything I could even conceive of.” He shakes his head quickly, before bracing himself as the dizziness hits again.

Twilight’s voice floats to them. “Oh, after a few times, it’s not so bad.” Picard turns and looks. She seems roughly human, though with the same purple coloring she had as a pony, her hair is basically the same as well. She smiles as she offers a slim hand. “Should have seen me after I went through the first time, I totally freaked out, not just from the trip, but the fact I was changed to this.”

Picard reaches out and grabs her hand, letting her grunt a bit to help him to his feet. As he gains his feet, he reaches over and helps Geordie to his own feet. He looks down, he seems to be unchanged, his skin color remains normal, he breathes a soft sigh of relief and straightens up, looking down at the former pony. “How, old are you, Princess?”

She shrugs. “I’m twenty-one years old, Captain.”

“I would take you for fifteen or sixteen, if we used a human scale for age.”

She tilts her head to the side. “Maybe that’s why they didn’t question how I looked in the school.” She gestures to the building. “This is Canterlot High School.”

A scooter bounces over the curb, and speeds towards them. Geordie grabs Picard’s shoulder and shoves him back before the scooter skids to a stop, and the figure driving the scooter leaps off and strips off their helmet, revealing a young woman with almost human skin tones, yet they seem a bit more yellow-orange than normal for humans. Her hair, however, is a fiery red and orange mane that was only barely contained by the helmet. She leaps at Twilight Sparkle and they embrace. “Twilight!” She shouts happily.

“Sunset!” Twilight’s enthusiasm is equal to the newcomers.

Data steps up to Picard while the two girls chatter at each other excitedly. He leans closer to the Captain. “I’ve examined the portal, now from both sides of it. I am at a loss to explain how it works. But the thaums emanating from is are truly exceptional. This is power levels several times what a Galaxy class starship could produce. I think it can do more than it does. Judging by how it changed Princess Twilight’s form when she went through. I think I will have it set on active scanning when we return, we might be able to learn of the mechanism on how it works.”

Picard grimaces. “What exactly was it we just passed through?”

“I only have one possible point of reference sir, given Geordie's description of the energy, the change, as well as our location, I believe it is something akin to a guardian of forever portal. However something either much more primitive, or much younger than the original. Lacking the sapience, so it may be fixed to this one time space location.”

Picard nods as the girls seem to finish greeting each other. Twilight turns to Picard. “This is Sunset Shimmer. A friend of mine from Equestria. Though she’s moved here, semi-permanently.”

Picard offers a hand, and the newcomer shakes it. “A pleasure to meet you, Miss Shimmer.”

Twilight smiles. “I’ve told Sunset Shimmer about what is happening in our world. We write each other all the time.”

Geordie gapes. “You write each other, across dimensions?”

She nods. “We each have a book, whatever I write appears in it’s twin here. And the same when she writes back.”

Picard blinks. “Well, then.” He looks at Data. “Let us do what we came here to do, Mr. Data.”

“Aye Captain.” Data is already scanning around, he briefly points the device at the newcomer before looking around with it. “Fascinating, Captain. This world is fully formed, a class M world. Without the Enterprise sensors, I can not get a full composition. But I can scan around. The sun is a G-type main sequence star, similar to those many Federation worlds orbit.” He stops, tapping the tricorder a few times. “There are two moons, and the stars do not match any known constellations.”

“Best guess, Mr. Data.”

“Based on these sensor readings and reading the quantum signature of the matter of this world. I would say that this is not our quantum reality, and likely not within the bounds of the Federation.”

Picard nods. “So, no indication of the barrier that is around Equestria?”

“No, sir. Though one moon has a similar crystal signature that the Equestrian moon has. The other has some similar properties as the other moon.” He looks up at Picard. “I would say that this world never went through the loss of their sun like Equestria did.”

Twilight blinks. “So, you are saying a completely different universe? Not some crazy pocket dimension or something tied to that portal?”

“That is correct, Princess Twilight.” Data says.

She claps her hands before turning back to Sunset. “In a few days, a lot of ponies are going to be coming through the portal. That’s if our most recent plan fails.” She glances back at the Starfleet officers. “But I am going to ask that the mirror on our side be transported up at the last moment, so we can keep in contact.” She huffs. “I hope I can persuade Princess Celestia to come through before then. So at least she’ll be alive.”

“Princess.” Data says. “There is a complication.”

Twilight stops, her mouth open, she turns and closes her mouth with a click of her teeth. “What?”

Data points his tricorder back at the marble statue. “The connection, without your equipment to power it, only is open at certain times?”

She nods. “for three days every thirty moons.”

Data nods, “Interesting, tell me, does magic work here, or I should ask do the natives here use magic?”

Sunset blinks looking confused, “Well yes and no, most don’t but more recently we’ve had a few cases such as the girls, being able to use magic.”

“Mr. Data?”

Data turns scanning sunset, “And this all happened after the gate came into more common use?”

Twilight starts to pale as she realizes something is wrong.

“Yup,” Sunset says then blinks. “You’re not suggesting…”

“Sir,” Data says, “While localized, because they have different quantum signatures, they affect the reality around them slightly. While it is limited in scope, and likely controllable, if used for a mass crossing I think we would see the magnification of the issue. The more dimensional matter crossing the more the chance of a cascade failure and even a quantum rift forming.”

Twilight’s face freezes for a long time, then she looks back at Sunset, then slowly, she crumples to her knees, tears sprouting from her eyes. Sunset rushes up and grabs her in a bear hug. “Hush, sweetie, it’s going to be okay.”

“I was hoping.” She gasps out. “That at least some more ponies could be…” She buries her face in her friend’s shoulder, sobbing.

Sunset rubs her back. “I know, I know.”

Picard looks at his operations officer. “Is there any way to bolster the connection, to stabilize it?”

Data sweeps his tricorder one more time towards the portal. “I am sorry, Captain. There is too much energy involved, this is a dimensional portal, any energy we add would likely increase the chance of a failure. There is no known technology to stabilize or alter quantum signatures. Even transporting between quantum realities is not fully understood.”

“Have you scanned for the pony’s thaumic energy?”

“Yes Captain. This world has magical energy much like Equestria does. Though it doesn’t seem to be used as it is back on the other side of the portal.”

Geordie pipes up. “They are fairly humanoid in appearance, so they may not have horns or wings as the ponies do. So don’t know how to access the magic?”

Data nods. “That is a plausible explanation.”

Picard slowly looks around then shakes his head, “No, that’s not it.”

“Sir?” Data and Geordie blink looking at the captain.

“It’s something Q said.” Picard looks at the stores, the cars, “They have technology. To us, they would be a pre-warp civilization.”

“Yeah, early 21st century earth.” Geordie says looking around slowly, “So? You aren’t thinking about the prime directive are you?”

“No, I’m realizing…Their minds haven’t been open to the possibilities. They adopted science, technology, and with that.”

“And with that they closed their minds to the possibility of magic.” Sunset says looking around. “I never considered that.”

Twilight stands up, being supported by her friend. “Okay, I’m okay now. Sorry.” She looks down.

“Oh, Twilight, you were hoping to help, to save as many lives as you can.” She stops for a moment. “The thought of my world, my home, being destroyed to save another world.” She stops and shudders. “I can’t imagine what you are going through. As princess, you are responsible for them. You were grasping at any straw you could think of. This one isn’t going to work. But you will find a way.”

Twilight sniffles. “Are you sure?”

That gets a smile from the sun haired girl. “Of course I’m sure, Twilight. If anypony can save the world, it’s you, and your friends.” She glances at Picard. “New ones, and old.”

Twilight nods, scrubbing an arm across her face. “Thank you Sunset.” She turns and hugs the other girl tightly before turning back to Picard. “I’m sorry we wasted your time. I guess we should get back home.”

“It was not a waste, Princess. We tested a theory and it was proven to not be viable. Doesn’t discount the effort to find alternatives.”

She looks up at him. “I know, Captain. Though with this option being closed to us. That means that we are putting all of our eggs into one basket. As to whether or not we can move the entire system. And it’s not a hundred percent guaranteed.”

He smiles gently. “Nothing is a hundred percent guaranteed. But my crew is one of the best of Starfleet. If it can be done, we will do it.” Or die trying. He didn’t add. Though both of them knew that was a possibility. She hugged Sunset Shimmer again, and then, with a steady, measured, tread. She walked back towards the portal and stepped through. Picard nodded to his crewmembers and Geordie stepped through, closely followed by Data, his tricorder opened in his hand. Picard looked back at Sunset Shimmer one last time and returned her wave before stepping through himself.

***

Once again, Captain Picard finds himself with his eyes closed, trying not to vomit, lying on the floor. He coughs and sits up, trying to gather his legs underneath him.

“Oh my Celestia, Captain Picard, I’m so sorry!” Twilight’s voice comes through. “I can fix it, I’m going to have to do some research!” She dashes off. He blinks a few times, looking at the alicorn as she runs towards the computer setup. He tries to move around, somewhat confused that his limbs don’t seem to be working as usual.

“Captain. There is something seriously wrong here.” Geordie’s voice impinges on his consciousness. He looks over and stops. A dark brown Pegasus with midnight black mane is standing there, wings splayed, and yet somehow he is still wearing a VISOR. The pony opens his mouth and Geordie’s voice comes out. “Something must have happened in going back through the portal.” The pony flinches and looks at him. “Captain…”

“What?” Picard looks down, for the first time noting that his body is not the shape it used to be.

“Captain.” Data’s voice comes to them. Both of them turn and standing before them is another pony type creature. This however is of a kind that neither of them have seen before, looking almost a cross between a pony and a dragon, with scales down the back and a bushy mane and tail, along with a long, forked, horn sticking up from the forehead.

“Data?” Geordie squawks, spreading his wings in shock.

“I seem to be suffering some sort of major malfunction.” Data continues, not moving anything but his mouth, “My optical sensors are misaligned, audio directional inputs are off, and most of my processing and diagnostic systems are inaccessible, I may need your assistance.”

Geordie takes a step before tripping and falling on his face. He takes a moment to plant both forehooves next to his head before pushing himself to standing on all four limbs. He takes one step, then two, slowly wobbling over to Data. “Data. What are you now?”

Data blinks turning his head slowly, almost shaking as he realigns his line of sight, “I am… I am…” tilting his head to the side a bit, “I am partly green?”

“The tricorder,” Geordie says reaching out with a hoof.

Looking down at the dropped tricorder, Data’s horn lights, the two crimson bands glowing as a yellow aura surrounds the horn. A matching yellow magical field enveloping the device and bringing it up and opening it.

“How…did you do that?” Picard asks.

Data looks almost confused, “I am not certain sir, I simply thought that I needed the tricorder and picked it up. I can not explain the processes past that.”

“Interesting.” Picard says. He looks at his chief engineer. “Can you just fly without training?”

“Oh don’t try that.” Another voice chimes in. Starlight Glimmer walks up. “We don’t need him eating dirt. Basic flight is instinctual for pegasi, but they crash a lot before they understand flight really. Just like basic levitation is instinctual for unicorns and other magical ponies.” She stops and sits down, looking at Data. “I’ve read about Kirin, but I’ve never seen any before.”

“Kirin?”

“Yeah, Kirin. Dragon ponies.” She gestures to Data. “Just think about using your hands how you would normally operate the tricorder, Mister Data. Your magic will follow your direction. You simply have to provide that direction.”

“He’s an android, how…?” Picard says softly.

“The magic of the portal, this side is Equestria, it turns you into a pony coming back this way.” She tilts her head. “Though if you weren’t a pony before, it decides based on your personality, on what you are…inside.” She looks at Picard. “You, apparently are an earth pony at heart. What’s your cutie mark?”

“My what now?”

“The mark on your flank.”

He turns his head, using that very flexible neck. Looking at his flank, he sits down heavily. “What?” On his haunch is a thin flute, much like a pennywhistle, with a cord attached and some musical notes around it.

“That’s very pretty, Captain. I didn’t know you were into music.”

“I’m not…really.” He stops, remembering that time not too long ago and the whistle sitting in a box in his cabin. He looks over at Geordie, who is inspecting his own mark. A wrench with a lightning bolt. “That’s not too bad.”

Geordie smiles and looks at him. “Yeah, fixing things. That kinda fits with how cutie marks were explained to me.”

The clatter of the tricorder hitting the floor interrupts them, and all three ponies turn to look at Data. “Something wrong, Mr. Data?”

“I’m…not…” Data says softly. “Artificial…I guess the word is. Anymore, that is.”

Picard’s eyes widen. “Wait, what? How?”

Starlight moves over and uses her magic to pick up the tricorder. “That Mr. Broccoli showed me how to use these.” The hand scanner pops from its spot on the device. She plays it over the former android. “Yes, you are fully a Kirin pony.” She tilts her head. “Male, apparently thirty years of age, fully grown. You have a pretty good amount of magic available.”

“But no cutie mark?”

“Kirin don’t get them, a product of their dragon heritage, I believe.” She turns and raises her voice. “Twilight, remember when you turned yourself and your friends into breezies?”

Twilight flinches before turning from the computer before rushing over to them. “I remember.” She huffs, a bit out of breath. “But I don’t have a way to turn them back, I need their genomes.”

Data blinks a few times. “Transporter trace.”

Geordie shakes his head. “I don’t think she can use a computer file to restore us.” He looks down for a moment. “Maybe a hair brush or tooth brush?” Something with actual DNA.”

Picard reaches up a hoof to tap his chest. Relieved when his communicator beeps, at least him and Geordie are still wearing at least uniform tops. “Picard to Enterprise.”

“Riker here.”

“I have a bit of an unusual request. Please have Beverly go to Geordi and my quarters and grab something with our DNA on them hair brush, tooth brush, anything with DNA, and bring them to sickbay. We will be beaming up shortly.”

“Something wrong, Captain?”

“Nothing that can’t be fixed, Number One. Out.” He turns to Twilight. “Okay, we can handle Geordie and myself.” He glances at Data. “But Data doesn’t have a genome. He isn’t biological.”

Twilight glances at Data. “I’m sorry, Mister Data. I don’t know how to fix you…yet. But I promise I’ll figure out how.”

Picard sighs. “Much as it pains me to say, Twilight. The current crisis must take precedence.”

“But we are pretty much just waiting for the crystals, right? We can’t do much ourselves right now?” At his nod, she continues. “You’ve got staff working right now on preparing the ship. So, once Dr. Crusher makes it down here, we can get you zapped back to normal. And then we can figure out Mr. Data.” She glances at Geordie. “Do you want to learn how to use those wings, Mr. LaForge?”

He folds his wings tightly against his sides, his ears splaying to the sides while his tail tucks under his rear. “Oh, no, Princess. I’ve got too much work to do. I’m one of the staff you mentioned.”

She giggles a bit. “Can’t hurt to learn what it’s like to be a pony for a few minutes.”

“Oh, no. I’m good.” He thinks for a long moment. “Though if you could zap me back after we’ve got Equestria safe. Maybe we could try it out, under better circumstances.”

She grins. “Okay, deal.” She turns to Picard, her face going somber. “I’m sorry about this Captain. Since you are not from Equestria, and don’t have our magic. I thought the magic of the portal wouldn’t affect you that way.” She looks down. “I know it changes me. I didn’t think for even a moment about it changing you. I’m so sorry.”

Picard nods. “Thank you, Princess. I know there was no malice involved here.” He looks at his crewmembers. Starlight has pulled Data off a bit and is talking to him softly.

Twilight notices him looking. She leans closer. “She’ll show him a bit about the magic he has now. With potential and no training, he could be a danger. Give her a little bit of time.”

Picard nods. “We need to head back to the ship. Starlight, do you wish to join us aboard?” At her nod and smile, he taps his com badge. “Picard to Enterprise, five to beam up.” In only a matter of seconds they are whisked away.

As they are walking towards sickbay, Picard is finding he has to concentrate to keep his limbs moving the way they need to for him to walk. Data seems to be having the most problems. Starlight Glimmer is walking close to him, helping to guide him as they move. “How does one walk like this?” Data says, more and more panic creeping into his voice as they continue. “How does one keep time? How does one, wait…will I need to eat? Drink? Go to the bathroom? I lack subroutines for all of this.” He turns back to look at Picard. “Sir, this is not acceptable, I have not been prepared for this” Data starts to smoke somewhat, giving the aura of an overworked computer.

Geordie blinks, tapping his VISOR with a hoof. “Data, careful I’m showing your body temperature rising fast.”

Data blinks, “I can’t tell. I lack diagnostics in this form, how do I deal with it? What am I supposed to do?”

Picard shakes his head as he leads the group into sickbay. “Data, calm down, breathe.”

With a rather large foof sound Data flashes to a black coloring, his mane and tail shifting to crimson and orange flames. “This should not be possible.”

“Data! You’re on fire.” Geordie shouts, everyone backing away.

Blinking Data looks back getting more confused.

“Doesn’t that hurt?”

Data shakes his head and speaks as though his voice modulation system is on the fritz, “No, it does not. Should it?”

“Warning, thaumic fire detected in sickbay. Emergency evacuation. Fire containment systems online.” The computer pauses for a moment. “Failure, fire containment fields unable to activate, life form detected. Evacuate area, command authorization required to activate containment.”

“DENIED! DO NOT ACTIVATE!” Picard yells out quickly.

Twilight looks worried. “I’ve only heard of legends about the Kirin. They are gentle souls, but when they get angry, they turn into Nirik’s creatures of fire and wrath.”

“I am not angry!” Data snarls. “I simply wish to return to normal!”

“Oh, but how will I roast my marshmallows?” Discord’s voice causes Picard to look up. The draconequus is floating behind and above Data, a long forked stick in his claw with a large marshmallow being held over the flaming mane of Data. He pulls it from the fire and blows on it for a moment before shoving it in his mouth and chewing happily. “So, you checked out that troublesome portal that Starswirl had created.” Flitting around Discord places a cookie on Picards muzzle. "Good for you."

“Fix this, Q.” Picard says with a stomp of a hoof.

“It’s Discord, here, Mon Capitan.” He tilts his head. “But we don’t want him to melt the deck.” He snaps his claw and Data reverts back to a normal Kirin, blinking in surprise, his eyes dilating, as he starts to wobble a bit. “There, we calmed him down.” He looks at Twilight. “Now you can work your magic, Princess Twilight.”

The doors open, admitting Dr. Crusher. She stops dead on seeing the menagerie in her sickbay. “Captain?”

Picard nods. “We apparently had a magical mishap. Do you have something with a sample of my DNA?”

She holds up a toothbrush. “Yes, Captain.” She looks at Geordie, holding up a hairbrush. “And for you as well.” She looks at Twilight. “I’m guessing you are going to do the honors?”

Starlight Glimmer floats the hair brush from her hand while Twilight takes the tooth brush. Both ponies walk over and their horns light brightly, and with a pop, both of them are back to human. Picard looks down, noting his uniform now again covers everything essential and takes a sigh of relief. “Now, about my operations officer?”

Starlight and Twilight look at each other. Both shrugging. Twilight speaks up. “Sorry Captain, I don’t have anything to refer to magically to revert him. I will have to do more research.” She brings a hoof up to her chin. “Perhaps with the technical specifications of his from before he came down.” She brightens. “I know I will be able to fix you, Mr. Data.”

Data looks forlorn. “So, you can not fix me?”

“Not right now, Mr. Data. I’m so sorry.” She looks at Starlight for a moment. “Maybe if we send him through the portal, it might turn him back human…I’ve heard rumors that if you are covered in magic when you go through the portal, it could prevent the changing when he comes back.”

Geordie moves over to Data. “Would it be better to be human, Data? Closer to what you were before?”

Data blinks. “I do not know. What I can do as a Kirin?” He looks up at his horn. “And as a Kirin, I do have access to magic.”

Twilight flicks her ears back and forth. “Your magic could be helpful, but if you don’t control your emotions, it could get destructive.” She glances back at Discord. “He has a tendency to drive ponies nuts.”

“Hey, I resemble that remark.”

She turns back to Data. “Don’t worry about him. While we are working, I can teach you how to use your magic effectively.” She smirks. “Never know, you might just like to sing.”

Data narrows his eyes. “I do like to sing.” Then his eyes widen as he stands on his hind hooves spreading his forelegs, “I love to siiiiiiiiiiing” He sings out. Only to have a lion’s paw of Discord’s clamp down on his muzzle.

“Nope. Not now. No, we can’t have any of that.” Discord shakes his head no vigorously, “Count yourself lucky I stopped this before we got to the... la la la'ing." Looking down at Data, "You are such a problem child, don’t say I’ve never done anything for you.” He snaps his claw and Data is standing there, back to normal.

Discord humphs and then turns to Picard. “Well, there was another reason I showed up. I have been talking with Celestia, and she can do the transmission of chaos magic from the thaums you send her. With that, I can bring the planet along.” He stops and reaches behind his back and brings out a cookie. “Here, you’ve expanded your mind. You get another cookie. Two in one day!”

Chapter 11.

“Enterprise to Princess Celestia.”

He can hear her clear her throat, suppressing the panic she must be feeling. “Celestia here.”

“Are you ready?” Captain Picard asks.

“Yes, Captain. I have a good connection with the sun. I am ready.”

“Thank you. We will keep the connection live.” He looks at Data, getting a nod. “Okay, Enterprise to Princess Luna.”

A long moment waiting, then. “Luna here, I’m ready to go.”

“Thank you, Princess. Enterprise to Discord.”

“Hmmpf, it’s enough I have to deal with your primitive communication devices. Yes, I am ready, the planet will remain intact.”

Picard pinches the bridge of his nose. “Very well. We are bringing the ship into position.” He looks at the navigator. “One thousand meters orbit.”

“Aye aye captain.”

The massive starship slowly descends, and in a matter of moments, the details of the moon are quite easy to see from the viewscreen as the ship settles into the extremely low orbit. Picard walks to his chair and sits down, he fights to suppress his own nervous energy as he flips up his display and inspects the information on it. As the ship settles into the new orbit. “Okay, Bridge to Engineering, Geordie, engage the engines.”

Down in engineering, Geordi LaForge acknowledges his captain’s order before tapping on his controls. “Okay, impulse reactors are taking the entire internal loads.” He inspects the displays before looking at the alicorn in engineering. “Princess Twilight, as we’ve discussed, when the energy levels are right, you need to moderate the conversion to your thaumic energy so you can channel the energy to Celestia, Luna, and Discord?”

She she looks at the computer display before her. “Understood.”

“Okay, ramping the engines to one hundred percent.” He slides his hands along the slider controls, the computer responding instantly. “Here goes nothing.”

The lights of the matter/antimatter reactor core speed up as waves of matter and antimatter are fired from the injectors at the top and bottom of the core, meeting in the middle at the dilithium crystal at the heart of the warp core of the starship. The anti-deuterium passes through the crystal which directs the stream into a very small point, focusing the stream of particles at the point where the deuterium particles from the upper injectors impact. The two streams touch and a massive amount of energy is created, instantly absorbed by the additional deuterium from those injectors and flashing to extremely high energy plasma, which is routed by the electromagnetic field generated within the dilithium down the power transfer conduits. That plasma ends up in the plasma injectors in the nacelles of the great starship, energizing the warp coils, and with the computer not allowing the formation of a coherent warp field, the engines store that energy, glowing bright blue. But they won’t be able to store this much energy for very long. That energy has to go somewhere.

Geordie nods. “Okay, we are at one hundred percent. Now comes the tricky part.” He taps his controls and the volume of the reactants increases further. “One hundred five percent.” He calls out. “One hundred ten.”

On the bridge. Data’s hands are flying over his controls, without his work, the ship would be streaking off into warp. As it is, the energy is building up a warp field making the ship vibrate as that field expands into the massive crystal in the center of the moon they are orbiting. “Energy transfer will be starting in ten seconds, Captain.”

Captain Picard nods. “Very well.”

The reactor of the starship is heating up, that much energy not doing anything is causing havoc all throughout the ship. The computer compensates by shutting down non-essential systems, and working to control the overload. The vibrations slowly build in intensity as more and more power is being added by the massive reactor of the starship.

“Power transfer starting.” Data announces as the warp field starts to interact with the massive crystal in the center of the Equestrian moon. At the same time, the main deflector dish fires, sending more energy to the planet, to be used by Celestia for her part in bringing the sun with them.

An alarm grabs his attention, Geordie taps the com panel, trying to keep his voice under control over the din of the engine. “Engineering to bridge. We’ve got a problem!”

Captain Picard’s voice comes over the speaker. “Go ahead.”

Geordie looks at one display then runs across the room to examine a panel on the wall, “Captain, the reactor is running at one hundred twenty percent. Coolant efficiency is dropping, the cryoplant can’t keep up with the strain. Interior of the reaction chamber is approaching thermal limits! I’m going to have to power down or we will risk a breach.”

“Negative, Celestia and Luna won’t survive the power loss.”

Geordie looks at Princess Twilight, who is standing there, her wings spread. “We’ve got fifteen seconds till computer safeties kick in and we enter auto shut down mode.”

Picard’s voice gets an edge to it. “Override the computer.”

He sighs as he complies. “Yes sir, disengaging safeties, diverting raw coolant, this might buy us a few more seconds.”

His gaze is fixated on the thermal readings, watching the arrow approach the end of the bar, and the number display continuing to rise. He looks down as the display errors out. “We’ve passed the redline, if they don’t finish…”

Almost as though the core heard him, alarms start to sound. He flinches away, expecting the worst. In moments, the core glows bright white, overwhelming everything, and the blast pushes him back, he tumbles to the floor head over heels, expecting the oblivion of death. Then he takes a breath, then a second. His VISOR takes a moment to reboot from the onslaught of energy it had absorbed, then he sits up, surprised to be alive.

“Ow ow ow ow ow hot hot hot hot…” Twilight hisses.

All around engineering, crew is levering themselves up, blinking at the spectacle before them. Twilight Sparkle is standing in front of the main display console, her wings spread wide, her eyes glowing white, and her horn glowing nearly as brightly as the core.

Twilight tosses her head. “Lyra, Minnie, Twinkle, help!”

The girls run up, lending their magic at first. “Whatcha need Twilight?” Minuette asks first.

Twilight gestures a foreleg at the core. “Lyra, take charge of repairs.”

“On it, Princess.” Lyra turns and gestures to Minuette. “Minnie, take care of the crystal, those fractures look serious. Twinkle, patch those coolant conduits first, then help me with that rip. We’ve got to cool down the structure or it’ll just fail again, so be quick, Twinkle.”

“I’ve got it, Twilight might have beaten me in the exams, but I still remember all the notes on temperature control magic, especially supercooling.” Twinkle says as she focuses her magic.

“Okay, Twilight, I can handle the repairs, but you’ve got to push the plasma back into the chamber. Think you can control its flow into the transfer conduits?”

Twilight grits her teeth. “No…worse…than moving…the sun.” She strains and grunts a bit. “Plasma is plasma.”

Before the crew’s astonished eyes, the entire matter/antimatter reaction chamber is covered in the magical aura of the alicorn princess. The side of the core is completely blown out, to where you can see the high energy plasma being generated by the reactants inside the core. Geordie moves up next to the Princess. Apparently the shield the Princess is making is even deadening the sound of the core, it’s nearly silent in Engineering. “What happened?”

Twilight blinks, though her eyes continue to glow. “Too much heat, too much pressure, the casing could only hold so long. Then it popped like a balloon. You know, the whole warp core breach thingy.”

“You contained a matter and antimatter explosion…with your magic. We should all be dead. The radiation alone…” He taps his VISOR as he looks around. “The radiation?”

“Is contained, shield spells are great that way.” She grunts a bit. “Lyra, start on the breach.”

“I know, Princess. I’m working on it. This is a lot trickier than a simple fixit spell. Give me a moment, just concentrate on the shield, keeping us alive.”

“Okay, coolant is patched, I’m beginning to scan the core casing for any other faults or weak points.” Twinkle Shine says. “The cryo lines are functioning, and I’ve managed to bleed off some of their heat to give us more time.” She walks around the core. “Here micro-fractures, here micro-fractures. I know you are around here, somewhere.”

Minuette slowly moves closer to the core, her horn alight brightly. “Okay, I’m in the antimatter stream, I’ve got the crystal oriented manually, and I’m helping keep it together till we get everything patched.”

“Good girls…” Twilight says softly as the ponies diligently keep busy.

“Canterlot school for gifted unicorns!” the three cheer as they continue working.

“Bridge to Engineering, what happened, power levels dropped by thirty percent.”

Geordie slams his hand to his badge. “We had a core breach. Repairs are in progress, Captain.”

“Keep me advised.” There is a pause, then. “Breach or failure.”

“Breach, Captain.” Geordie shakes his head. “The ponies. The princess, I don’t know how, but she contained the explosion, and the others down here are repairing the core as we speak. They are actually holding a live matter/antimatter reaction in their magic, moving the plasma and controlling the streams.”

Twilight grunts before tilting her head a bit at Geordie. “We’re doing our best, Captain. We’ll try to be finished in a few minutes, Captain.” Shaking her head and stepping closer to the reactor, Twilight calls out. “I’ll try to hold everything together. I’ve got to, for the ship, for my friends, for Equestria.” The captain wisely closes the channel so they can work.

Lyra steps almost close enough to touch the core with her horn. “I’m glad I’ve been reading on your materials science, took me in directions we would never have gone. I’ve used some of the material in the deck to replace the lost material, transmuting it to match the structure of the reactor. It’s a patch job, but…” Lyra shakes her head. “I’m also converting the inner lining and adding in a new crystalline structure, give you another thirty percent heat resistance.” She glances back as the hole in the core finally heals. “That paper you wrote on thermal insulating properties of hyperdense crystals finally came in handy.” Lyra says with almost a smug look at the princess. “How you holding up, Twilie?”

“I’m doing good. It tingles a lot to touch the antimatter.” She shivers. “Never felt that before.”

“You’re telling me.” Twinkle Shine says, all her fur on end. “Crystal is ready.”

Twilight huffs. “Don’t tell Lemon Hearts.”

Lyra giggles as breached area glows as the mint green unicorn finishes up her work. “Yeah, she’d be upset that she missed it.”

Twilight nods with a smile. Her eyes reverting back to their usual purple. She looks at the other unicorns. “We good?”

Lyra glances at Minuette, who nods, she then looks at Minuette, who calls back. “One more. Got it, done. No more microfractures, good to go. Good to go, Twilie.”

Twilight. “Okay, repairs are done. Twi, go ahead and ease off your shield. Let’s see if it holds.”

“Okay.” The sound of the core starts to become more prevalent as the alicorn backs off her magic. Finally she lets her horn go dark. Though the core is still bathed in the color of her magic field. “I tied off the shield. Let’s see how that works.”

Lyra leans against Twilight on one side and sighs before whimpering. Twinkle Shine moves to the alicorns other side and lays down with a soft groan. Finally Minuette half drapes herself over Twilight’s back, moaning, causing Twilight and Lyra to drop to the deck partly under her.

“Wow, that was worse than class finals.” Twinkle Shine says. “You okay, Twilie?”

“I can’t feel my horn… but I’m fine.” Twilight says with a sigh. “Everypony okay?”

Minuette groans. “I can’t feel my legs, next time somepony tells me to grab antimatter and manually control it, stop me.”

She lowers her head, huffing. “That was scary.” Taking a moment to catch her breath before she looks at Geordie. “Go ahead and give them the power they need.”

Geordie moves over to his console and taps a few keys. “Okay, here goes nothing.”

The din in engineering rises again as more reactants are fed into the core, increasing the power output. He presses on the com button. “Okay, Captain, repairs and reinforcements are complete, ramping up power.”

Riker’s voice is more than a little shaky as he responds. “Understood, we are about ready to initiate the pulse.”

On the planet, in the highest parapet of the Canterlot castle, Princess Celestia is absorbing the energy emitted from the main deflector dish of the Enterprise. She grunts at the strain, she knew that the humans had the ability to make a fantastic amount of energy so they can travel faster than the speed of light, but this amount astounds her. No wonder they were so confident that their weapons could break apart her planet. She had weathered the drop in power that had happened, but when it came back, she had gasped, the pain and pressure of that amount of magical energy sent to her was beyond anything she could even conceive. Her cutie mark is glowing, and her eyes are shining bright white as she uses her connection to the sun, something she usually only uses to gently guide the celestial body in its daily path around her planet, and feeds that massive energy into it, enveloping it in energy, allowing it to join them in their journey through subspace. She taps her communicator. “Celestia to Enterprise, I’m ready.”

Discord is not having the most fun time this day, instead of spending time with Fluttershy or in his own chaotic dimension, he’s doing actual work. He’d chosen Fluttershy’s animal sanctuary for his part in this. Primarily because it’s in clear view of the Canterlot castle. Celestia had directed some of the energy the Enterprise was sending them towards him. Had he been allowed to by the continuum, he’d have more than enough to bring this planet along for the ride. But as it is, he gasps as the solar alicorn directs more energy to him as she finished up capturing the sun. He reaches down with his claw and paw and grabs the ground, directing the energy through himself and adding in what he can to enfold the planet, protecting it from the forces to come and ensuring the Equestrians have a long and wonderful life, and perhaps coming close to achieving what few have been able to do, to become Q. He glances at his communicator and it activates. “Discord here, I’m ready.”

Luna is having the worst time, by far. In the same chamber she had spent a thousand years, she is standing once again, though this time, for a better purpose. The crystal running through the moon is absorbing the warp energy from the starship. And instead of dissipating that energy as heat, she must keep it contained. She grunts as she strains, the other crystals start to glow in response to the massive energy. She can feel what’s going on inside her moon. “Captain, , we simply must have more.” She says into her communicator.

“Understood.” Captain Picard looks at Data, “Celestia and Discord are ready, back off the deflector dish and add that power into the warp field.”

Data nods, too busy to devote processing power into speech. The raw information from the sensors is flashing by almost too fast for the android to read. He adjusts the flow to the deflector down as the warp engines glow even brighter. The crystal below them almost acts as an energy black hole, absorbing every joule of power sent to it. As they are working, the view around the ship slowly opens up as the barrier thins and dissipates. For the first time in many millennia, the Equestrian system is open to space. Princess Luna grunts as she directs the onslaught of energy to productive use for the crystal.

“Engineering to bridge, even with the repairs and bolstering, we are at our limits, you need to initiate the pulse. It’s now or never.”

Picard looks at Data. “Mr. Data.” He starts.

“Understood Captain, stand by.”

Princes Luna growls a bit. “Captain, I think we are ready, you should be getting feedback now.”

Data nods. “Confirmed, Captain, the crystal has enough energy.” He taps on his board. “Princess Luna, sending the pulse, now.”

Instead of warp energy from the nacelles, the command from the ops station on the bridge realigns the plasma injectors for the warp coils, instantly forming a warp field, with the energy stored in the crystal, the ship stays in place as the energy it had pumped into the crystal expands the warp field the ship is producing. In moments the field around the entirety of the three bodies.

“Captain, the field is established, it’s up to them to give it that final push. We can’t do anything else here.” Geordie calls as he backs down the power from the reactor.

On the bridge, Captain Picard nods. “Agreed. Helm, get us away from here, warp two.” He looks as the course is entered. “Engage!”

The starships impulse engines briefly glow brightly as they push the ship away from the moon, reorienting the ship towards open space. The bright light from the engines converting into speed as the ship fully engages the warp engines and streaks off into the void. After only a few seconds. Picard nods. “Okay, that should be enough. Take us out of warp.”

The ship slows, a few seconds at warp two, or eight times the speed of light, has the ship still within visual range of the equestrian system. Though the light from the system has to travel at merely the speed of light, the bridge crew is able to see their own ship from only a few minutes before. Data brings up the display through the enhanced subspace sensors. “Captain. The system is going into subspace.”

As the crew watches the entire three bodies of the Equestrian system seem to elongate and disappear. All eyes focus on the android officer as he works his computer terminal. “They are moving at superluminal velocities, Captain. The warp field should take them safely out of the Betazed system.”

That gets a huge sigh from the bridge crew. Captain Picard steps up next to his ops officer. “How is the system taking the stresses?”

Data pores over the data flowing on his displays for a long moment. “According to our final readings before the planet entered the subspace inversion, the field created by the Equestrian moon is of sufficient strength. The bolstering by Discord seems to have shielded the planet from the worst of the transition.” He looks up at the Captain. “Though I suspect there will have to be some rebuilding of structures and the collapse of said structures will likely cause some loss of life.”

Picard looks up at the screen momentarily. “I hope that the loss of life is minimal, the ponies should have taken heed of the warnings we transmitted before we attempted this.”

Worf speaks up. “Princess Celestia did emphasize the potential of some catastrophic damage. The ponies tend to listen to their leaders fairly well. I have no doubt most of the ponies are in the open away from anything that could harm them.”

Troi blinks a few times. “God speed for them.” She murmurs.

Captain Picard straightens his uniform. “Subspace sensors?”

“We are tracking the system through subspace, Captain. I recommend a heading of 128 mark 22, warp factor one point three.”

Picard looks at the navigator. “Take that heading and engage.”

The ship rotates and streaks off into warp. The minutes pass by agonizingly slowly for the crew with the exception of the android officer at ops. He continuously checks the progress of the Equestrian system through subspace as the ship keeps up with the stellar bodies in their travels.

Data leans forward. “Captain.”

Picard stands up from his seat. “What is it commander?”

“The system is emerging from subspace.”

Picard frowns, looking back at Riker. “That’s far too early. They haven’t cleared the system yet.”

On the screen before them, the stellar bodies blink into existence as the starship powers down the engines. Picard orders standard orbit around the planet as the com chirps. “LaForge to bridge.”

Picard glances up. “Go ahead, Geordie.”

“Twilight and her friends did a fantastic job, but the reactor is at its limits. I recommend we power down, take the warp engines offline while we make more complete repairs to the reactor vessel.”

Picard nods. “Make it so.” He looks at his ops officer. “Mr. Data, condition of the planet.”

Data works his controls. “I am analyzing the incoming data Captain. Initial reading show the system has exited subspace much earlier than anticipated. The intention was to have the system exit outside the influence of the Betazed stars gravity. As they are now, they are roughly in the equivalent orbit of Jupiter of the Sol system. The direction of movement shows that they will orbit the star…” He pauses as he reads the numbers. “at a minimum of seven hundred thirty two million kilometers. More analyzing of the orbit will tell us the maximum distance. Their orbital velocity should be sufficient for this to be a stable orbit.”

Picard sighs. “So, they are captured by the stars gravity?”

Data nods. “Yes, captain. They are safe, and now a part of the Betazed star system.”

A beeping from the tactical station has Picard looking back. “Captain, on the moon…”

Picard nods and slaps his com badge. “Enterprise to Princess Luna.”

Silence is all that answers them.

Picard looks at his ops officer. “Life signs?”

“Stand by, Captain.” He works for a long moment. “She is alive, but her signs are fading.”

“Emergency transport!”

“She is outside transporter range.”

Picard whirls towards the turbolift. “Move the ship to transporter range. Chief Medical Officer to transporter two!”

Inside the turbolift, there isn’t enough room to pace, so he simply taps his foot, trying to keep the nervous energy from erupting. As the doors open he dashes down the hallway and slows just before entering the transporter room. Beverly is only a few seconds behind him as they climb onto the platform. “Are we in position?”

“Aye captain.” O’brien says.

“Energize.”

Their bodies glow as the energy dematerializes them, to emerge only a few seconds later down in the crystal cavern. Picard looks around before pointing. “There!” They rush to Princess Luna, who has collapsed on the dais where he had conversed with her not all that much time before.

“Damn, Captain. She has magical exhaustion, something I didn’t know an alicorn could experience, given how much magic they possess.” She runs her enhanced medical tricorder over the prone princess. “She’s barely breathing. We need to get her to the ship.”

“Agreed. Enterprise, three to beam directly to sickbay.”

And in moments the transporter whisks them away.

***

Captains log: Supplemental.

Our efforts seem to have been a success, the Equestrian system is now in a stable orbit around the Betazed star. As we had agreed previously, the colony, now named New Hope, will flourish with contact with their home planet, only a few dozen light years away. Though there was certainly a price, Princess Luna continues to be in a coma, her sister and Princess Twilight are aboard, assisting the medical staff with supportive care. The system was in subspace for only forty-two minutes instead of the planned four hours. We have learned why via scans of the Equestrian moon. The crystal which has created the barrier which protected their home for thousands of years is now cracked, and will never work again. Also, as predicted, some structures on the planet did not survive the transport, though the loss of life was miniscule, thanks to the ponies heeding the advice of their princesses.

The starship is once again peacefully orbiting the planet. Captain Picard walks into sickbay, noting it now has three long term guests, one patient and two other alicorns staying with her. Picard finds it interesting that the normally unflappable Celestia has been unnerved by the condition of her sister. Her wings hang limply and have definitely not been cared for properly. Twilight Sparkle is only marginally better condition. Celestia has continued her moving of the Equestrian sun, and their moon, from the Enterprise. He moves up to the solar princess. “Anything new?” he asks softly.

She blinks a few times before turning her gaze to him. “I don’t know, Captain. Normally this level of magical exhaustion requires us to support her and feed her and allow her body to recover.” She sighs and nuzzles the prone body of her sister. “The medicine your doctors have given her, and everything else has helped. But she’s at death’s door. And I don’t know what to do.” Tears slowly spill down her cheeks. She crosses her horn with her sisters. “Please, Luna, come back to me.” She whispers softly.

Picard watches the princess for a long moment before turning towards the medical officer’s office. As the door closes behind him, he looks at his chief medical officer. “Well?”

Beverly Crusher closes out the tab on her PADD. “I have been reviewing every bit of medical information brought up from the planet. It’s like, she’s there in body, but not in soul. There really isn’t much we can do for her.” She leans her seat back. “I’m sorry, Captain.”

Captain Picard sighs in frustration. “Well, Doctor any resources you need, use them. They need their Princesses.”

“Understood.”

He turns and exits the office, stopping in his tracks. In the few minutes he was in the office, several ponies and Discord have entered the sickbay. He nods to Twilight, who is standing with her friends.

“Poor Luna.” Pinkie says softly, her normal exuberance muted. She looks at the others. “Can we help? Maybe sing a song? There is magic in the song.”

Twilight sighs. “We can try, but I have a feeling it will be forced, and you know forcing this magic is the wrong way to go about it.”

Fluttershy is standing next to Discord, a wing holding onto the draconequus. She sniffs a few times. “She’s lost in the dreams, Captain.” She reaches out her other wing to touch the princess. “But how do we bring her back?”

“Well, don’t look at me, I’ve seen her dreams. I ain’t goin in there.” Discord snaps. “And we should probably keep miss sun butt out of there too, unless we want to deal with Daybreaker again.”

Celestia glares at Discord for a long moment before subsiding. “Then who to help her?”

Princess Celestia blinks. “She has an apprentice.”

All eyes focus on her, she flinches at the scrutiny. “She was so excited when she found a new dreamer, she was planning on announcing her to you after this crisis. You were all focused on saving our world, such happy news could wait until a more appropriate time. She’s been working with her new apprentice for a few months. Dreamers are so fantastically rare, on the order of natural healers. Only a few in Equestrian history.”

Picard steps forward. “Can she be summoned?”

Celestia nods.

Half an hour later, the door to sickbay opens, admitting a gray unicorn with a multihued mane and a crescent moon cutie mark with a star. She smiles and bows before the solar princess. “As you command, I appear, Princess.”

“Moon Shadow, my sister’s faithful apprentice.” She inclines her head slightly in acknowledgement. “Princess Luna is stuck in the dream and requires your help.”

The young unicorn mare’s eyes widen. “Me? Princess, I have but bare months of experience working with the dream. I haven’t even entered any pony’s dreams yet. Princess Luna has been teaching me the dream world, and all of its dangers. I’m not ready for that.”

Picard squats down to be eye level with the unicorn. “I understand what you are saying. But she must be helped. Is there any way you can help another? Help them into the dream with her?”

Her eyes dart from the Princess to the human back and forth rapidly. “Its relatively simple to insert somepony into the dream, but you have to have an emotional connection with that pony, you can’t just do that willy nilly.”

He glances at Luna on the biobed. “ I don’t know if I know the princess well enough. But we have shared some time together. I would hope there was some connection between us. I have already volunteered to help.”

“But you aren’t a pony. This is pony magic, a pony must go, otherwise you might get lost. I wouldn’t be able to, if I’m directing you into the dream. All my energy would be just keeping you in her dream.”

Picard looks at the other assembled ponies. “I gather that we will need another volunteer.”

Judging by the wilted ears and shifting hooves, nopony is leaping to join in. Though Princess Celestia slams a hoof down. “She’s my sister. I’ll go.”

“No!” comes the cry from almost every pony, though Moon Shadow continues. “I’m sorry Princess, this is exceedingly dangerous. I couldn’t put both princesses in danger like this. Please, it should be anypony else. Has anypony been in the dream with Princess Luna before?”

Twilight and her friends all flinch, tails and ears shifting in anxiety. Finally a small voice squeaks out. “I’ll go.”

Everyone stops and turns to look, apparently the three foals that call themselves the cutie mark crusaders have entered sickbay with the rest. A small white unicorn with a poofy pink and light purple mane is standing there. “I’ll go.” She says again.

“Over my dead body, Sweetie Belle.” Rarity screams. “You are far too young to be…”

"She's come to me and the other girls in our dreams more times than I can count.” She looks at Rarity with a steely look, getting the older mare to pause in her rant. “She's helped me through some of the hardest problems I have had. At the same time though, I learned about her. I know Princess Luna possibly better than anypony but Princess Celestia. I have to do this, I have to help her, like she helped me!" Belle says stomping her hoof with a loud clack against the deck.

Moon Shadow nods. “It might work. Princess Luna has said that I know just enough to get myself in trouble.” She chuckles. “Well, let’s get in some trouble then.” She looks at the other biobeds. “Let’s get you into bed and get started.”

Chapter 12.

Captain Picard leans back into the biobed. Beverly Crusher leans closer to him. “We had some equipment to monitor Commander Riker’s dreams. We will monitor your bio readings to ensure you are safe.” She places a device on his forehead. “I don’t know how this works, but at least we can learn something about the process.”

Moon Shadow walks up to him, her horn already glowing faintly. “I’ve helped ease Sweetie Belle into a light doze, ready to head into the dream. I don’t know enough about hoomans. I’m sorry, Captain. But it will take me a bit to get you aligned with the dream as ponies understand it.” She tilts her head slightly. “Though there is good news on that front. Many species on your ship can dream much as we dream, since your ship has been here, Princess Luna has been entering the dreams of your crewmembers and helping with nightmares.” She leans closer. “It’s one reason that she is trusting of you. Your crew fears failure in this as much as we do. You hoomans do have our survival as much of a priority as we do. And for that I thank you.” She nuzzles his cheek for a moment, before flinching back and blushing. “I’m sorry, helping in this way is a lot more intimate than many realize, we will be diving deep into not only Princess Luna’s mind, but into yours and Sweetie Belle’s. Just lean back, Captain. And I will take care of you.” She turns to Princess Luna, lying in her biobed. “We are here for you, Princess.” She murmurs almost too softly to hear.

Picard closes his eyes, noting the sound of the pony’s hooves on the deck as she moves between Luna, the filly, and himself. The chime of her magic slowly increasing in intensity. In moments, sleep washes over him.

***

Picard looks around. They are in Ponyville. He has visited the town enough times in the last several weeks to be quite familiar with how it looks. He looks down at Sweetie Belle. “It’s deserted.”

She nods in response. “We need to find the Princess.” She starts off, keeping her pace high enough that he has to take longer strides to keep up with the little ball of energy.

They get to Canterlot Boutique, Sweetie walks on in. Though the door at the front doesn’t ring as it usually does, getting a frown from the human before he turns and looks around. “Rarity?” Sweetie Belle squeaks. “Are you here?” Picard listens, and after a long moment, Sweetie Belle repeats, again to no answer. Picard waits in the shop as the filly heads up to the residence portion of the building. A few moments later, she’s walking downstairs. “Everything looks right, but there’s nopony here.” She sighs and sits down, looking at Picard.

His combadge chirps. He looks down at it for a moment before tapping it. “Picard.”

He instantly flinches at the static pouring through the device, which also causes the filly’s ears to fold back. He listens as a voice seems to come through. “Cap… please…something wrong.”

Picard frowns. “I don’t recognize the voice. It almost sounds like Princess…”

Sweetie Belle holds her chin with a hoof. “But we are in a dream. They couldn’t call you on your badge thingy from a dream, right?”

He nods. “Something odd is going on here.”

He leads the filly out of the boutique. Then stops for a moment as he sees something that makes him stop in his tracks. “What is that?”

He glances down at Sweetie Belle, her ears are pinned back, and her eyes are wide with fear with her tail pinned to her rear. She whispers softly. “Nightmare.”

His own eyes widen. “Like what she turned into before?”

She nods. “Oh, this is bad. Like really bad bad bad. If the nightmare has taken over her mind. She may be unreachable.” She sighs heavily. “Well, we need to find her. Try to find some way to talk her into sanity.” She starts off, the tall human in tow.

After they walk through the town, they end up before an absolutely massive tree, and Picard gapes, “This was your library?”

She nods, her ears twitching. “Yeah, Twilight lived here when she first came to Ponyville.” She stops, ears twitching more before swiveling to lock onto the door. “Do you hear that?” He listens for a long moment before shaking his head. She frowns. “Well, I do. Follow me!” She says, the last word squeaking as she barrels through the front door of the tree.

The door opens to a large circular chamber, carved into the center of the tree, its walls carved into shelves, each containing a rainbow of different colored books. Several wooden pedestals stand around the edge, some empty other with books on them. A round table sits at the center of the room with several books open, on top of it, a stylized mares head made of ebony.

Tilting her head to the side, Sweetie Belle blinks, “Hear it now?”

He nods. “Crying.”

“No!” Picard says, stepping forward. “Equestria is safe. You are safe, aboard my ship.” Picard starts.

“Lies!” Luna shouts, loud enough to push him back. “I felt the energy. I felt the loss. There’s no way…” She devolves to crying again.”

Picard steps forward, only to be impacted by a large body, an inky black pony with silver royal vestments similar to Luna’s is standing their, her ethereal mane nearly insubstantial, her teeth sharp and deadly looking, her slitted eyes narrowed. “I said go! LEAVE ME BE!” She shouts. And in moments, everything fades to darkness, leaving Picard and Sweetie Belle standing in black nothingness. He looks at the filly. “What now?”

“Oh, I was afraid of this.” Moon Shadow’s voice comes from everywhere. Then reality folds next to Picard and the gray unicorn steps in. “I can’t enter the dream as you are. But I can help guide you.” She flickers a bit. “This is really difficult.” She stops and closes her eyes, her flickering slows and finally ceases. She opens her eyes and smiles brightly. “There, that’s better.” She flickers again. “But not for long. I can’t stay here. She doesn’t realize that we succeeded. She’s stuck in a world of pain.” She flickers yet again. “Find her again. Help her see.” She blinks out.

He looks down at Sweetie Belle. “So, how do we proceed?”

She shrugs. “Only one direction to go, Captain. Forward.”

He puts his hand on her mane and they take a step.

***

Picard flinches, he’s in the cavern in the Equestrian moon. He looks over at Princess Luna, who tiredly steps away from the dais. She floats her communicator over to her, activating it. “Luna to Enterprise.”

“Riker here.”

“That was rougher than I thought it would be. Is the planet safe?”

Picard can hear hesitation in Riker’s voice. “Physically, the planet is just fine. But…”

Her voice gets hard. “But…what?”

Data’s voice comes over the com. “The planet seems to have been…stuck…would be the right word, in time. Princess. Initial scans show several thousands of years have passed during the time the planet travelled in subspace.”

“What?” I’m coming aboard.” She charges her horn and somehow, Picard and Sweetie Belle are brought along with her teleport. Luna steps over to the android officer. “What’s going on?”

Data looks at the screen as his hands work on his console. “I have beamed down camouflaged surveillance drones. We are getting a feed now, Princess.”

“On screen.” Riker says.

The apparent live video feed from the drone appears on the screen. It is coming up on a small lighthouse. As it approaches, the door opens and a tangerine pony with a multicolored mane walks out, wearing what look like roller blades on all four hooves. The audio feed from the drone starts to come in.

Inhaling deeply the pony smiles looking up at the sky closing her eyes for a moment before she starts to sing, “Good morning, sun, No time to chat, I gotta run”. Dropping to all fours she starts to roller-skate down to a modern looking town, “'Cause I've got places to be.”

Skidding up to a cart, the mare starts packing drinks into a wheeled cooler, “So much to do, Excited, yes, and nervous, too.”

The drone tilts as it zips along keeping pace with the mare as she starts her trip through the town, “A change is starting with me!”

“No, that’s impossible.” She murmurs. She turns to Data. “Please tell me.”

The screen shows, all through the town, posters for something called CanterLogic, different earth ponies go about daily business, some seem to be preparing for or heading towards a large factory.

Data almost sounds mournful. “Princess. According to scans, the three primary pony tribes are scattered in several settlements. I cannot detect any thaumic activity, at all, Princess.”

“They aren’t living in harmony? They aren’t together?” Her voice gets really small. “My sister?”

“Everyones afraid, always judging never budging.” The drone reacquires the mare as she continues her song puffing her cheeks out as a navy blue and black mare finishes putting up a CanterLogic poster that reads ‘To be scared, is to be prepared’ with the picture of a unicorn and Pegasus attacking a cowering earth pony.

Skating up to the sign the orange pony continues her song, “Ain’t it time we made, the team,” With her hoof she draws a big heart on the poster before attaching a cute happy unicorn sticker to it. “Dream!

“Sensors can not detect her presence, Princess.”

“Discord?”

“No, Princess. Nor is Princess Cadance or Flurry Heart showing up on scanners.” He taps his status board and looks at the data being shown. “I am, however, showing that ponies have developed technologically in this intervening time. While the pegasi are not flying, they seem to have occupied what used to be Canterlot. Though the royal palace seems to have been rebuilt. The city has wireless signals, indicative of portable data technology that was prevalent in the early part of the human twenty-first century.” He looks up at the Princess. “There is a small amount of unicorns in what was the Everfree forest, among settlements spread out over the planet. Though the total population is quite low. And as we have seen, the Earth pony settlements are also spread over the planet. Though…” He tilts his head slightly. “They do not seem to be in communication with each other. In fact, the planet seems to have reverted to a very provincial setting.”

“Dragons? Hippogrifs? Griffons? Kirin? Everything else on our planet?” Data queries the computer sensors for a long moment before looking up at her. He doesn’t even have a chance to open his mouth before she starts to sob. “I failed them. They are lost!” She collapses to the deck, sobbing piteously.

Picard somehow has to fight his own body to try to speak, to move, to do something. Sweetie Belle is fighting just as hard. She takes a step, then a second. “Princess.” She squeaks. “We are safe. You haven’t failed.”

Everything around fades, leaving them with Luna in infinite blackness, lying down, sobbing. The dream hold on them evaporates. They rush to Luna, who has somehow morphed to the size of a filly and is curled up in a ball.

"It’s all because of me, all because I failed... they are left without each other, scattered, separate...They have lost their trust in each other...lost their magic... all because I failed. I failed a thousand years ago, I failed now... "

"Luna"

The little blue foal turns away curling into a ball hiding her head under her wing. "I'm useless, I couldn't save them, and now...now they have nothing."

"Oh Luna...." Picard starts

"Begone!" comes a new voice, sounding somewhat like Luna, but immensely more powerful. A black form coalesces out of the darkness, somehow darker than the black around them, her flowing mane a plethora of stars in blackness.

"The Nightmare?" Sweetie Belle says softly as she shrinks back.

Landing in front of the foal, the nightmare spreads her wings, "Leave her be! She was weak, she was helpless, she was wrong! Now her... Our... sister is gone! The ponies are gone! You won't hurt her any more than she is!" With a thunderous crash, Nightmare stomps her hoof on the ground, sending the pair flying backwards into a field of singing flowers.

Sweetie Belle looks around, blinking, "She threw us into an old dream...I think...Nightmare moon is trying to protect Luna's mind... but..."

“I remember being told of Nightmare Moon, but she lusts for control, for power. Why would she protect Luna here?”

Sweetie shrugs. “I don’t think it’s actually Nightmare Moon, but an aspect of Luna’s personality, what she views as protecting the ponies, protecting herself. It manifests as the Nightmare it seems.” She sits down, cradling her chin with a hoof. “When she turned into a foal, that was her feeling vulnerable, defeated.” She looks around. “This is a trap, her mind creating something to trap invaders in her mind.” She claps a hoof on the ground. "We need to find a portal"

"A portal?"

"Uh huh, unlike Pinkie Pie. I can't just bounce to the next dream by hopping, ummm.." Looking around, Sweetie Belle blinks, then sticks her head through a flower. "Okay that was easier than I thought." She disappears, climbing into the flower. Picard shrugs and follows the filly, the flower somehow stretching to accommodate his size.

***

Picard looks around. “This isn’t Equestria,” His eyes widen. “Those are prefab colony shelters.” Sweetie Belle looks up at him questioning. He gestures to the structures. “When a colony is first set up, there’s no shelter on an empty planet. And it takes time, sometimes years, to build with local materials.” He starts walking. “The Federation will provide shelters that can be beamed down and assembled quickly. I explained to the Princesses how it would go on the colony when the ponies arrived. Several cargo ships were dispatched to deliver this equipment, along with computers, sensor systems, and transporters. To help with setting up a colony before the colonists build their own homes and spread out from the initial point.” He stops, looking around. “This is similar to the images I showed the Princesses about how the new colony would look.”

“Hello?”

The new voice gets both of them to turn and look. A unicorn stallion steps out from a shelter, though he doesn’t look to have had the best of time. His mane is matted and dirty. Mud is splattered up his legs all the way up to his body. He flinches back on seeing them. “Oh, I thought the Princesses were coming.” He kicks the ground slightly. “I know Celestia refused to join us, but, Princess Luna was supposed to join us, if saving Equestria wasn’t possible. But it’s been so long. She never came.” He takes a step back. “The hoomans…”

Picard looks at the filly, then back at the stallion. “The Federation promised…”

He screams out. “Promised? They promised? The lied!”

Picard stops, one hand reaching out. “Wait…what?”

“It’s been two years. Two bucking years, and we haven’t seen a ship since we got dropped off. It’s been root, hog, or die. We try to talk on the computer talky thingie, trying to get anypony, talk to Equestria, see if they survived. See if anypony was out there.” He flinches away. “But all we heard was war, and supplies are limited. The Federation can’t help.”

“No…that’s impossible.”

“They said the Borg, who the buck are the Borg?”

That last has Picard stopping, a chill growing in his chest. The stallion is standing before them, though he’s changing as he speaks. “Your Federation is too big, too spread out, to help one single planet of displaced ponies.” He’s gotten bigger, his beige coloring darkening. Even his voice is changing, becoming raspier, and beginning to sound like multiple voices talking at once, taking on a chorus. “We aren’t important. We are on our own. Without our Princesses. Without any pony, or dragon, or kirin. It’s just us.”

“Stop!” Sweetie Belle screams out, slapping her hoof onto the ground. The stallion stops talking, though he’s now inky black. He snarls before turning and disappearing. Sweetie turns to Picard. “We need to find Luna here. Show her the truth.” She dashes off.

“Sweetie Belle wait!” Picard starts before a familiar voice ring through his mind.

Borg implants appear on the black pony, as a second pony, this time an equally dark full borgified mare looks at the captain, “What’s wrong Locutus? Have you forgotten about us already?”

Taking a step back Picard blinks, “You.”

“You were perfect once, you can be again.” The voice says, “They call can be.”

Picard shakes his head, “This is just..”

“Just what? A dream? Have you forgotten? We live in dreams too, share information as we regenerate, process information, and this is wide open to me. Thanks you Locutus.”

Almost yelling, “No!” Picard said as he turns his back, “The Federation failing the ponies?” That seems completely impossible to him. He blinks and starts walking quickly, trying to keep up with the filly as she runs through the settlement, her ears rotating as she listens for Luna. Several other borg ponies stand looking at them, not interfering, merely carrying about their business.

“Ponies are about harmony, about unity, they are prefect for us, their song, joining our own. No sadness, no fear, perfection.” The voice says, “And you delivered them to us Locutus.”

After a few minutes, she stops and looks back at Picard with a smile. She gestures then dashes into what looks like a library.

Picard follows, and in moments they are standing once again before Nightmare Moon. Several borg seem to be trying to walk forward but keep bouncing off of some kind of shield, one stands there trying to analyze it with sensors.

“Oh, I see, we need special crystals to detect this power,” The female voice says, “Your knowledge will always benefit us my Locutus.”

Passing through the shield, Sweetie Belle’s teeth are bared and she’s pawing the floor with a hoof as Picard enters the room following her. Nightmare Moon turns her head narrowing her eyes, “You have brought them, you have shown them how to find us, how to get to us.”

He braces as the Nightmare snarls and then she rushes at Sweetie Belle. Belle is barely able to get her magic started when the larger mare impacts with her. Picard leaps to the side and catches the pony, landing heavily with her on his chest. She smiles at him for an instant before launching herself back at the nightmare.

Before she can make contact though Nightmare Moon yells “Enough!”, and the entire room disappears, and once again, they are in inifinite blackness. Sweetie Belle lands heavily, skidding on nothing. She turns back, breathing heavily. “No. We were so close!” She shakes her head, her ears flopping. She takes a long moment to compose herself before looking up at him. “Okay, we keep going?”

Picard nods. “You are one brave little pony, Sweetie Belle.”

‘Yes she is Locutus. She will make an excellent drone.”

Picard looks around quick before closing his eyes tight, opening them he nods once.

She blushes as she smiles in response. “I have to help my Princess.”

“Forward?”

“Forward.” He places his hand on her mane as they once again step forward.

***

Picard blinks, he’s standing next to Sweetie Belle, and they are on the bridge of the Enterprise. He’s speaking before the assembled crew and ponies. Every pony looks on the verge of tears. “Due to every attempt to alter the course of the system failing. We have exhausted every potential avenue available to us. It is our sad duty to save as many lives as possible by ending many lives today.” He heaves a big sigh, which internally he is screaming that this isn’t right. “Commander Data, the ship is at capacity?”

“Yes sir. The last ponies able to be beamed up have just been brought aboard. We are ready.”

“Very well.” Unwillingly, he turns to Princess Luna. “As you have requested, Princess. The order is yours to give.”

Princess Luna steps forward, tears streaming down her face. “Forgive me sister.” She murmurs, looking at Twilight Sparkle, lying in a crumpled heap on the deck. She steels herself. “Make ready the weapons.” She says, looking at Lt. Commander Worf.”

After a few moments. “Torpedoes are locked on the planet in the programmed array.”

“We shall destroy the planet first. So they don’t have to see their beloved moon or sun destroyed first.” She says softly. She stops for a long moment, breathing deeply.

“Princess, there are very few moments left.” Captain Picard says unwillingly. “I can…”

Luna shakes her head as if emerging from a fugue. “No, Captain, it is my responsibility to give this order.” She sighs heavily. “Mr. Worf. Fire.”

The Klingon officer taps his control panel and bright photon torpedoes streak towards the planet. “Impact in ten seconds.”

Data straightens in his seat before turning to look at the Captain. “Captain. I’m reading a disturbance at the Vanhoover beam out site. Probe six is transmitting activity.”

“On Screen.” Riker says firmly. And the screen flickers to a shaky picture. The beam out site has a ring of pattern enhancers, several lying on their side. One is snapped in half, the top light is flickering. In the center of the circle is a navy blue unicorn, her horn lit as she tries to shield a group of foals around her, the foals are crowding close to her, scared and crying.”

“Can we get them out?” Riker shouts.

“Negative sir, too much interference.” Data says before a white flash fills the screen, causing the screen to blank out.

Picard turns to look at Princess Luna. The pain on her face wrenches his heart.

***

Picard blinks, Sweetie Belle is shaking her head. They are on the bridge of the Enterprise. He is speaking to the crew and the ponies. The words emerge from his lips, but they feel as though they are being spoken by someone else. “Due to every attempt to alter the course of the system failing. We have exhausted every potential avenue available to us. It is our sad duty to save as many lives as possible by ending many lives today.” His mind is screaming as he turns to his operations officer. “Commander Data, the ship is at capacity?”

Picard fights to do something, anything, different as the scene replays exactly as before. He watches, helplessly, as he again prods the Princess to fire. Which she steels herself and opens her mouth to speak.

“STOP!” Comes a small voice. Barely heard, coming from Sweetie Belle. “Princess. No, Equestria is safe.”

Luna blinks. “Impossible. I can see that we have failed. I have failed my sister, I have failed all of you.”

Picard strains, trying to break the impassive mien. “She’s right.” He’s able to whisper.

Luna stops for a long moment, looking between the filly and the human. “No.” She whispers. She shakes her head. “No. We tried, we failed, it didn’t work.” She sits down. “Didn’t it?”

Picard fights the hold of her dream on him. Sweetie Belle seems to be having as difficult a time as he trying to break through. She strains, lifting one hoof and taking a step forward. “Princess. You are safe, we are all safe. You…”

“LIAR!” The volume from the princess is enough to make him take a step back. Though Princess Luna’s eyes widen before she collapses to the deck. When she does, whatever was holding him evaporates and he rushes forward, Sweetie at his side. As they get to Luna, her body fades away, and in moments the bridge of the Enterprise has faded.

***

Picard blinks, looking around. Princess Luna has teleported to the royal palace in Canterlot. She dashes off, sobbing. In moments he can see why. Several royal guards are lying on the floor, bodies mangled and unmoving. The scene looks like the aftermath of some great battle, a grey pegasi lays charred and smoking, several white and grey castle guards lay, their armor crushed, a dark grey, almost black unicorn mare, its horn broken, lays in a pool of dried blood.

Picard looks at the filly. “I don’t think you want to see this, Sweetie Belle.”

She takes a deep but shaky breath. “No matter what I see, it’s nothing compared to what Princess Luna is going through.” She gulps, looking at the mangled body before closing her eyes for a moment and shaking her head. “We need to help her.” She dashes off, and Picard follows quickly. The hoof beats of the Princess are clearly audible as they make their way through the castle. As he rushes through, he can see severe structural damage to the building. Columns are down, glass is shattered. In moments they make their way out of the castle and they skid to a stop. Luna is there, embracing the broken body of her sister. Picard walks slowly forward. “Princess. Please, this is your fears, this is not real.”

Luna looks up at him from her sister’s body. “But how? That’s impossible. I can feel her, I can feel the death. Can’t you? We saved your world, your Betazed.” She looks out at the ruined city. “But at what cost? At what cost, hooman?” The rage in her voice gets both of them to stumble back.

“Princess…” Sweetie Belle starts.

“ENOUGH!!” Comes the now familiar voice of the nightmare, she’s suddenly between Luna and them. “Can’t you see? See what she’s going through? And you sully her with lies! Begone!” Her horn lights and she sends a blast towards them.

“No!” Sweetie Belle shouts, her own horn lighting and she throws up a shield. The energy from the nightmare impacts, but Sweetie Belle holds her ground. “You are not real, you may be a part of Princess Luna, you want to protect her. But we need to show her the truth!”

The nightmare snarls and leaps towards Luna, grabbing her and both of them twist within reality and disappear, the entire world twisting with them. Picard and Sweetie Belle end up standing before a set of doors. The stench of death and burning is gone.

Sweetie looks around. “This almost looks like the castle of the two sisters in the Everfree.” She smiles. “We have to be getting close to her, the real her.” She looks up at Picard. “It’s like going through an onion, we’ve had to peel away each layer and get closer to the core, to the real Princess.” She gestures at the doors. “She’s got to be there. But the Nightmare will be strongest there.”

He nods. “Well, let’s help her.” He places a hand on the door knob and pushes the door open.

Glancing around Picard notes that they are in a large bed chamber, but this seems to be decorated more like a foals room, with stuffed animals, toys, and even pictures on the wall drawn as if by a child or foal. Slowly he scans the room then blinks, looking back at a pile of stuffed animals, one of the toys, a small dark blue foal, with light blue mane, blinks.

Tilting her head looking at the pile as well Sweetie Belle softly calls out, “Princess?”

“Go away, no more, please.” The foal cries and tries to nestle back under the toys more.

Picard starts to take a step forward, when a loud voice booms out, “Enough!”

With an eep Sweetiebelle scampers back and hides behind Picard looking as purple and black mists coalesce into the form of a large bat winged mare, “Ni…nightmare moon?”

“She has been through enough,” The mare says putting herself between the two and the pile of toys.

“None of what we have seen has come to pass.” Picard says softly, looking at the dark mare. “Equestria is safe.”

“You lie, you are just another illusion of the Tantabus.” The mare says defiantly, slamming her hoof down. “Come no further.”

“Tantabus?”

“But, we beat that in Ponyville, I was there.” Sweetie Belle says, “It was a creature Luna created to punish herself so that she would never forget and never let…”

“Never let me return.” The mare says.

Picard blinks, “I’ve read and heard some stories about you, but you do not seem… to be the same Nightmare as in the books. That one wouldn’t be protecting a foal.”

Nightmare blinks, “She is weak, she always was.”

“And you? You are her strength?” Picard asks softly.

“I have to be.” Nightmare moons eyes flash to the side where a dark shadow of an equine stands, “Especially with that nearby.”

Sweetie Belle blinks, “I...” Turning she looks back at the foal in the stuffed animals, “I understand Luna, it’s safe though, those were nightmares, they weren’t real.”

“I can’t.” The foal says sadly, tears in her eyes.

Sweetie Belle looks up at Picard, “You… you don’t have song magic, but… can you play an instrument?”

“My flute but…”

“Think about it,” Sweetie Belle says plaintively, “It’s kind of like a lucid dream, if you concentrate, it will appear. I can’t to do this alone.”

Closing her eyes, Sweetie Belle starts to sing softly. “It's hope that rushes within my veins,
It keeps me warm on the darkest days,” Opening her eyes “Just like this one, single memory, it may not fade.”

Picard looks at the foal confused, “I…”

Looking up at Picard, Sweetie Belle motions to the flute that somehow appeared in his hands, “I will promise you that I'll do everything I can.” She sings softly, “I will take you along, And this song, overflows, Like a wish nearing close.”

Picking up the rhythm Picard starts to play, matching her, harmonizing with her melody yet playing around it.

“Everything in life sings along,” She continues, but as she does the dark form, the black mare starts to approach, sparkles spreading around.

In response, the Nightmare steps forward, snarling at it. Her horn glowing as the room flickers, almost as if it’s starting to fade. Picard steps forward to stand beside the nightmare looking at the shadow of a form, as he plays his pipe, the last time he played with this much emotion, was with Lt Commander Daren.

Almost yelling out in song, Sweetie Belle puts her hoof down. “So don't you dare turn away from this one reality,” Looking at Nightmare Moon, “Find the courage to stand up and fight on.”

Luna lifts her head slowly, as Picard plays, the shadow creature retreating a bit.

“Turn your anger into strength,” Sweetie Belle continues, causing Nightmare moon to blink looking back at Sweetie Belle, “Melting sadness in its wake.”

Nightmare Moon nods looking at Luna, “'’Til you find your fate, that’s waiting here always.”

Sweetie Belle nods, “You were shaken to the core by the cries that call your name, but they're the ones that you could never betray.”

Nightmare moon turns slowly, walking up to the foal lowering her head, “We have made it here at last, may this future never end.”

Little Luna meekly sings out, “And we'll live through this period of time.”

Crossing their horns the two sing to each other, “At our horntips, the truth will align.”

Everything fades from around them, leaving Luna, Sweetie Belle, and Picard standing in nothingness. Luna seems shaky, but confident. “Thank you my friend.” She says as she bows to Picard before turning to Sweetie Belle. “And thank you, young one. I do not think either of you understand how dangerous that was. To die in the dream would be to die in life, when you are in the dream of another.” She stops and chuckles. “I smell my apprentice’s hooves in this. I shall have to school her better on what not to do in the dream.” She straightens and looks around. “Okay, let us return to the real world.” She taps a hoof and everything turns white.

Picard opens his eyes, Beverly is hovering next to him. “That was…unusual.” He’s able to croak.

Crusher takes the device off of his forehead. “We got to see some of what you experienced, Captain. That had to have been a wild ride.”

Picard sits up, looking over at Sweetie Belle, who is being cradled by her sister, who is also sending evil glares at both Moon Shadow and towards Captain Picard. He smiles slightly as he regains his feet. He looks over at Moon Shadow, who seems rather unsteady on her hooves. “Are you okay?”

She stops for a long moment before blinking and looking up at him. “Oh, yeah. I’m good.” She shakes her head hard for a moment. “That took a lot out of me.” She grins. “I think I’m going to sleep very deeply tonight.” She inclines her head. “You may want to see to Princess Luna.”

Picard nods and turns towards the two alicorns. Celestia has dragged her sister off her bed and is hugging her with all of her considerable strength. Though, to be fair, Luna is hugging her sister back just as tightly. He smiles and takes a step forward. Only to find himself in bright white light. He blinks, Luna is there, so is Celestia, and Twilight, along with Discord. He looks around. He blinks a few times, looking at Discord. "Q enough."

Discord blinks, "Don't look at me..."

Then Eris appears with the female Q standing next to her. Along with two older looking gentlemen.

Discord groans, facepalming. “Q, and you brought Q and Q with you."

Eris and Q both sigh together. Eris glances at her human looking alter ego before she disappears. “You could at lefst TRY and look presentable rather then something that’s been rolling in chaos then tossed into entropy to dry.”

"Very funny," Discord says.

"Congratulations Q, you don't get to be punished this time."

"For what?" Discord says blinking.

"Oh, figure it out yourself." Eris says before turning to Celestia and Luna. With a gentle boop of Celestia's nose, "You and your ponies yet again, have proven that you can grow, and change. You've broadened your horizons and taken the next steps in your evolution, just...don't let these two leggers hold you back."

She moves over and boops Luna's nose, "Well done princess, you still have a lot to learn, but maybe soon, we'll be seeing you and your children visiting us."

Looking at Picard, she huffs. "I can see why Q likes your kind, Mon Capitan." Giving Picard a boop on the nose, "You've proven you too can adapt and change as needed. Though you are still so dependent on your technology, I swear, it’s going to be the death of your race."

"I am so glad we've passed your test... again." Picard says, shaking his head.

“Oh boy, that arrogance once again.” She looks around at everyone. “The real test, what we wanted to see, wasn’t from you, it wasn’t from the ponies. But you were definitely an integral part of the test. The one who was on trial here. Was you.” Her gaze settles on Discord.

He puts a paw to his chest. “Moi? How dare a Q test another…”

The older Q look at each other, then one speaks, "Life, evolution, existence itself is about trials. Every day, creatures are tested, and yes, many of these are life and death. If it did not happen, reality would stagnate and slowly fall to entropy."

The second one nods, "Tests, trials, however you wish to call them, do not only apply to you, but to everything, even our own kind. So take that as you will."

Eris turns to Discord. “Your pets might just make it, Discord. The two legged ones.” Her gaze moves over to Celestia. “And four.” She turns to Picard. “And don’t worry about long term effects from all this chaos. The Betazed system will not be harmed by having an extra planet with its couple of moons in orbit. You can’t say the Continuum doesn’t clean up after itself.” She turns to Celestia. “You ponies are outside your protective cocoon. What you do now, is up to you, what journeys, what mysteries you choose to involve yourself in, will all be there to expand your very horizons. Do you have plans?”

Celestia looks at her sister, then at Twilight. Twilight smiles slightly and inclines her head slightly to the side. Celestia clears her throat. “Before we made this attempt.” She stops and smiles. “Before we succeeded at saving our world. We all discussed with each other what would happen. We will petition for entry into the Federation. Some ponies have already expressed interest in joining Starfleet. I believe I heard a group of foals shout out cutie mark crusader Starfleet engineers.” She stopped for a moment, smiling brightly. “Apparently there are more groups of younglings who haven’t gotten their marks yet who are trying to find their place. And they are looking for that place in a much wider universe than we have ever known.” She looks at Picard. “With your assistance, I would hope. But ponies would take our place among the citizens of this galaxy. I would think we would need to find a way to purchase a starship, or get the knowledge to build one that would be more pony friendly in it’s design. And we would certainly desire to get to know new friends out in the wider universe.”

Eris smiles. “Good, now the lesson is learned, Discord, you are back to your normal omnipotent self.” With a flash of light, her and the other Q disappear, leaving them in sickbay.

***

Captain’s Log Supplemental

Given the time of this mission and the potential damage to the ship from our attempt to push Equestria into subspace. We will be staying in orbit around Equestria for several more days as final repairs are made. At Princess Celestia’s request, I have allowed all non-essential crew and civilians the option to beam down and enjoy the hospitality of the ponies. And also, per second contact procedures, a California class vessel, I believe the Cerritos, has been dispatched to assist with those procedures. As they are now a part of the Betazed system, ambassadors from Betazed have arrived to talk with the Princesses about various issues about having two completely different societies in one star system.

Captain Picard walks into the observation lounge, he stops as he can see the humanoid among the ponies. He takes a deep breath. “Lwaxanna, I must apologize that I wasn’t there when you beamed aboard for your discussions with Princess Celestia. My duties…”

“Oh, please, you were trying to avoid me, Jean Luc, but I find I must forgive you. Getting to meet these delightful equines has been an exhilarating experience.” She turns and looks at Rarity. “So, you were saying.”

“You were mentioning you had plans in nuptuals in the near future darling. I would love to make you the most beautiful wedding gown.” The white mare side eyes Picard as she’s talking. “The chance to actually craft a dress for a two legger!” Rarity giggles clapping her hooves together

“A wedding dress?” Lwaxanna says blinking.

“Why yes, its one of my favorite things to make.” Rarity says smiling. “The long flowing dress, the frills, the white and with gems, the…”

“The Fru Fru.” Applejack says with a strange smile.

“Oh hush you.” Rarity says puffing out her cheeks.

“Interesting, I’ve seen that style with some humans. Betazed weddings, however we normally go naked.”

“Naked? How… Gosh. How boring.” Rarity says, “There’s simply no originality with that.”

“Um, Rarity, you do realize, we are normally naked as is?” Applejack says.

“Exactly,” Rarity says, “But, A wedding. A wedding is a special occasion, and its always fun to dress up for this.”

Lwaxanna blinks, “True you are normally naked, and this is a diplomatic mission, how rude of me, perhaps I should undress as well.” Looking to her side, “What do you think Jean Luc? We wouldn’t wish to upset their traditions or culture.”

Picard blinks, then shakes his head, “I… I believe I have another meeting to go to…”

“Oh but Jean Luc, don’t you want to see me naked?” she asks with a coy smile, reaching for the bodice of her dress.

“I’m sorry, I’ll leave the diplomatic talk to you right now,” Tapping his com badge, “One to beam out….” Muttering low, “Emergency beam out?”

“Your loss, Jean Luc,” She says smiling as she starts to pull off her dress.

Chapter 1. Author's Note

In the endless blackness, a single beam of light slowly illuminate the ebony and ivory game board. Two rows of intricately carved figurines stand on either side. Gleaming marble like figures facing off with dark onyx pieces, their placement mirrored. Slowly a single hand moves to pick up a pawn moving it forward a space, and a soft chuckle can be heard, "Your move Mon Capitaine, you had better hurry, or it will be mate in 67 turns."

Chapter 1.

Princess Celestia was quite a happy pony. It had been months since the last world ending monster had attempted to take over Equestria. Her most faithful student has actually gone on vacation with her friends. She was still getting the occasional dragonfire letter from her fellow princess talking about this quiet time in Equestria. The Storm King’s forces had retreated after his defeat. Equestria was heading towards a great age of advancement and prosperity.

Today had been quite a momentous day for the Solar Princess; she had presided over the signing of two treaties. She and her dear sister had been negotiating for months with both the yaks of Yakyakistan and the Minotaur Confederacy to expand trade with Equestria. The signing of those treaties was a source of great celebration for Celestia. She was pleasantly tired as she headed towards the highest parapet in the Canterlot Castle. She could perform her duties anywhere, she could feel where the Equestrian sun was at all time due to her magical connection to it. But she preferred to not just be outside, she liked being visible to her subjects as she performed her daily duties in continuing the orbit of the sun around their world. Without her input, the sun would continue its orbit, but it would slow down and eventually stop after a few days. So she regulated the day of her world, just as her sister regulated the moon, which also had the added effects of moving the tides and the phases of the moon. Not to mention her time spent in the world of dreams, helping the ponies as they slept

Her magic touched the sun, that connection having her horn light much brighter than any other time she accessed her magic. Though that was normal for her, lighting the entire area as she moved the sun. The sun sent back a short pulse of power to her, acknowledging her input into its perpetual orbit like a dog wagging at a command. She smiled as she let the connection fade back to its usual background noise. The sun slowly slid under the horizon, eliciting a smile from the alicorn of the day. Luna stepped closer to her, her own duties regarding the moon complete, she nuzzled Celestia’s cheek lovingly.

“Good night, my sister,” she murmured softly as Celestia walked slowly towards her quarters. She nodded at the guards walking their nightly rounds as she headed into her suite. Sleep beckoned the alicorn mare, and she was quite happy to comply. Again she lit her horn and pulled her royal regalia from around her neck, her hoofguards were next, and finally her crown. As her horn quieted her ears flicked. She heard something that was completely out of her experience, an almost musical chime along with an undercurrent of electrical discharge. She turned around in her darkened chamber, her eyes wide as she flicked her ears, trying to pinpoint the source of that sound. She rounds the corner from her bedchamber into her study and stops, one hoof in the air in surprise.

Standing before her desk was a creature she’s never even contemplated, bipedal like the minotaurs, but that was where the similarities ended. Then she blinked. He, or it, was wearing some kind of clothing consisting of dark black cloth from its ankles up to it’s neck, though there was bright red shoulders. On its chest was an oval pin with some sort of delta shape on it, on the neck of it’s bizarre outfit was four silver circles. The face of the creature was mostly hairless, only having a thin fringe around the ears. She cocked her head to the side, the quiet authority of the creature was enough to stay her hoof, she did not feel in danger from this biped standing before her. Though a single shout would have a dozen royal guards roaring into her quarters.

That shout was never uttered.

After a slow count, the creature inhaled and spoke. She could tell that it’s language was very different than hers, though a flick of the ears pinpointed that her language was coming from the pin on its chest.

“My name is Jean-Luc Picard. I’m here because your world is in great danger, Princess Celestia, and we need your help.”

*****==8==*****

Star Trek: The Next Generation

A Knight’s Gambit

*****==8==*****

Eighteen hours earlier.

Captains Log: Stardate 46225.2

The Enterprise is in route from Starbase 395 to the Betazed star system. Interstellar sensors have determined there is an incoming massive gravitic anomaly, on its current path, it will pass quite close to the planet of Counselor Troi’s birth, to devastating effect. At its current speed, it will arrive in a matter of a few weeks. Our orders are to close and scan this anomaly, which has so far resisted any attempts to view it via long range sensors, and mitigate the threat to a populated planet. Measured gravity readings indicate something planet sized or even larger. Yet sensor views simply show a dark cloud. The Enterprise will be arriving at the cloud momentarily.

Checking his chronometer, Captain Jean-Luc Picard stood up from his desk and strode to the door from his ready room. As he entered the bridge, his first officer, Commander William Riker looked up, nodding to the Captain as the android officer spoke up from his ops station. “We are entering visual range of the anomaly, Captain.”

“Very good, Mister Data, drop out of warp and bring it up on screen.”
As Picard sits in his seat, he gives his shirt a slight tug to ensure his uniform is sitting properly. A moment later the star ship collapses its warp field, bringing back fully into normal space, the stars shifting from appearing as streaks to normal spots of light. Visual sensors trained at the coordinates reported by the other sensors of the Enterprise. The sensor information was fed into the holographic visual system at the front of the bridge. After some computer processing, the image appeared on the main viewscreen.
Looking at the screen, the image displayed just seemed to be a normal star scape, “Magnify, Mr. Data.”
Data taps on his LCARS and the image wobbles slightly as it zooms in, still showing very little out of the ordinary.
“What are we looking at, Data?” Picard leaned to the side a bit, “Are we viewing the correct spot?”
“Yes sir, though unsure exactly what we are seeing, Captain.” Looking back down at his control panel, Data again taps on the LCARS, “Visually, this is the correct location. From this position, several stars, however are incorrect.”
Blinking Picard looks up at the screen, then to Data. “Explain.”
“A few stars seem to be missing, others seem to be phase or spectrum shifted, not appearing exactly where they should be, or the same color or magnitude they should be.” Data looks up at the main display.
“Okay, what do active sensors say?”
“Stand by.” The pale hands of the android officer flew across his console. As he worked, the computer added details to the near featureless blackness, painting emitted energy, along with reflected information that the computer slowly rendered. Before too long, Data had pulled up a fairly complete view of the cloud.”
“Captain, what we are observing is not interstellar dust, but an energy barrier, roughly elliptical in shape, with a diameter of nearly twenty AU’s. Gravimetric sensors indicate there is at least one planetary mass inside, along with one or two smaller masses.” He taps his board a few times.
“Can we launch a probe?”
“Doubtful, sir, a probe would likely be torn apart by the gravitational eddies at the objects boundary.” Data said, looking up.
Picard looked to the android then the screen again. “Options, Mr. Data?”
“While the barrier itself seems to be a gravity distortion effect, of unknown origin, a low level warp field should allow the Enterprise to pass through unharmed at low impulse speeds. I would, however, recommend going through with full shields and extra power diverted to structural integrity fields to mitigate any effects of the gravitational shear from crossing the barrier.”
“Agreed. Yellow alert, shields up.” Picard said, “Make it so, Mister Data.”
Riker quickly tapped the com panel, sounding all hands, “All personal, brace for impact, we are about to pass through an unknown gravitational field. Damage control teams to standby.”
The automated systems instantly responded to the verbal command.
“Aye, sir.” The helmsman said softy has his own hands play across his board. The starship probed cautiously forward.

Monitoring his displays, Data called out. “Entering the barrier in ten seconds.” Riker found himself gripping the arm rests of his seat as the ship appeared to be diving into nothingness.

“Contact.” Days says as the viewscreen flares and the ship shudders as it passes easily through the barrier. The main view screen goes blank for a moment then shifts to displaying static.

“Data, what are we looking at?”

“I am…unsure sir,” Data started working on his board as new information was coming in, looking down at his LCARS display. “Captain, what I am seeing, seems to defy known laws of physics.”

Picard’s brow furrowed. “Explain.”

“There are three bodies in this system, a class M planet, a single moon that is roughly in a similar orbit as Earth’s moon, and another unidentifiable body in a slightly larger orbit around the planet.”

“Another body?”

Data’s hands moved faster than any human could, bringing different sensors and systems to bear on the small system in front of the starship. “Yes, sir. For all intents and purposes, it is a sun. It is producing heat and light, the radiative energy is similar in spectrum to a G type main sequence star, but no other radiation outside of visible light, infrared and ultraviolet.” Tapping on the console Data continues, “It has mass and gravity, but I am not detecting any known forms of fission or fusion in progress.”

Picard leaned over to Riker. “As interesting a mystery as this is, there are billions of lives at risk with this, the damage to the Betazed system would be incalculable. Do we have enough photon torpedoes to break up the planet?”

Riker nodded. “A modified torpedo with an 80 isoton gravitic warhead should be enough for the moon. The planet, however, would require modifying several torpedoes, and time may be an issue. As well we would have to carve the planetary debris into manageable sections and deflect the pieces away from danger. The sun, however, I couldn’t even begin to speculate, it may be possible, but it would take more energy than the Enterprise alone could put out. I recommend calling for more starships to help with the job.”

Captain Picard grimaced, much as he didn’t want to call for help, this time it’s actually needed. “Call Starfleet, see how many ships can be dispatched to help.”

"Aye. Sir," Worf growled from his tactical station confirms. "Sir, subspace communications cannot penetrate the barrier, we will need to exit first before I can transmit."

Data flinched. “Captain. I’m getting life readings from long range sensors.”

Riker grimaced, looking back up to the monitor, “Life? In here? How is that possible?”

“Unknown. But sensors are positively detecting biological organisms, the planet has an ecosystem of some kind.”

“It is an M-class planet in size, but life?” Picard glances at Riker before turning his attention back to Data. “Standard orbit around the planet, though avoid that proto sun. As soon as we are in orbit, begin a biological and geological survey scan. Hopefully the life forms aren’t much more than lichen, algae, bacteria, bugs.”

“That does not seem to be the case, sensors are detecting settlements. Possible roadways, well as long bands of ferromagnetic bars laid in parallel and spanning vast distances.” He frowns and leans a bit closer. “Once we get into orbit, we will be able to get more detailed information. I can already detect several large cities from here, however. Give me a few minutes to catalogue.”

“Railway lines?” Picard looked to Riker.

“Cities?” Riker said incredulously.

“Yes sir, I believe I said that,” Data said, looking back, “Rail lines much like those on Earth in 19th and 20th centuries, though other species have invented similar means of transit the, term railway seems to be…”

“Thank you, Mister Data, please continue with your scans.” Picard says shaking his head slowly.

“Yes, sir.”

“Curiouser and curiouser/ Something is definitely odd here. So, we are going to need every colony ship we can get our hands on, apparently.”

“What about the prime directive, sir?” Worf asked.

“We may need to make an exception here, I don’t like this, a Federation world endangered by this world.” Picard shook his head, “Our choices are do nothing and let Betazed be destroyed, evacuate the planet in violation of the prime directive, or destroy the planet, killing all life, in violation of the prime directive.”

“Seems like evacuation is our best option,” Riker says.

“Agreed.” Picard nodded. “Mr. Worf. Is there a way to penetrate the energy barrier with subspace communications?”

“With information from passing through the barrier. I may be able to modify a class 9 probe, once clear it could broad cast a pre-programed message, but we would not be able to receive a response.”

“Make it so.” Picard turned to Data, hunched over his station. “Mr. Data, an update?”

“I…” Words failed the android for a long moment. Finally he looked back at Picard. “What I am processing is completely out of my experience. There are several different species on this planet, and many, if not most of them, are apparently sentient. While the Xindi had six different species that had reached sentience on their planet, this may exceed even that.”

“The Xindi?”

“Yes, sir, but one species went extinct when their home world was destroyed, hence most only know of five. In this case though, I can see a well-defined rail network connecting between various settlements, and there are quite a few different nations. Species seem to be grouped in their own cities or settlements around the planet. Many of the rail lines however seem to concentrate or meet at once central city. The species inhabiting that city seem to be the most numerous on the planet.”

“Then that’s where we will need to start. what can sensors tell us about their species, Mister Data?”

“It would seem to be populated by sentient…” He taps a few more keys and brings up sensor data onto the main viewscreen. “…equines.”

“Pardon?”

“Scans do not indicate they are related to Earth or similar Equines beyond passing familiarity. Though there are four distinct types, or tribes, among these ponies.” He brings up some pictures the computer had finished rendering. “We have the standard ponies, then we have the winged ponies, then we have ponies with horns much like the unicorns of human mythos, and lastly we have the rarest of the ponies, the ones with wings and horns. Scans show a total of three of them, though there is a possibility that there are others that our scanners haven’t found as of yet.” He looked back at the Captain. “I recommend beaming down a few dozen holographically camouflaged probes, we can try to get linguistic information, as well as some close observation of the population. Their culture, habits, and behavioral patterns.”

“You are talking first contact procedures.”

“Yes, sir. Normally a discovery of such an unusual amalgamation of different species, all sentient, would require months, if not years of study before we even consider first contact with them. But given the time pressure, as well as the potential loss of life. The prime directive I would think does not cover such situations.” He brings up more species that the sensors have been detecting. A half cat half bird, half pony half bird, half bug half pony, minotaurs, and then Riker holds up a hand.

“Wait a moment, dragons?”

Data nodded. “Sensors indicate one large colony of dragons on the large central continent.”

Riker turned to Picard. “It’s as though all the Greek myths are on display here.”

“Anthropology department is ready to begin beaming down the probes.”

Picard pinches the bridge of his nose. “Gather information quickly, Mister Data. We need a good picture of this amalgamation of a society before we even attempt to make any kind of contact. I’m going to get a few hours of sleep.” He stands up, straightening his tunic. “It looks like we will be in short supply of sleep for the near future.”

“Aye, Captain.”

In a matter of minutes, the entire bridge crew, save Lt. Commander Data, was replaced by second shift officers. Data continued working, trying to build some sort of sense into the information flowing into the main computer from the orbital scans and the miniature cloaked probes flying all over the planet. While he was always aware of the passage of time due to his internal chronometer, the ebb and flow of starship life left him unaffected as he continued the work.

When Captain Picard entered the bridge early and headed to his ready room, Data did note his movements, but did not respond outwardly. Though he did message the Captain about setting up a staff meeting later in the morning. He continued his work without pause. At first, the work was simply his job, but as he was continuing to learn about the ponies and other creatures on the world they orbited, he found himself more and more fascinated.

***

Data strode into the conference room behind the bridge. With the current orientation of the starship in it’s orbit, the planet wasn’t visible at the moment. He looked around at the assembled crew members sitting around the conference table. He set down a PADD and looked to Captain Picard.

“You have a report, Mr. Data?”

Data nods. “I do, sir.” He tapped on the pad and the wall mounted viewscreen lit up. “This world is far different than anything the Federation or any known civilization has encountered.” He looks at the screen. “The main computer has been able to form a translation matrix based on a few hundred thousand samples the various probes have been able to garner. It is an OSV language with numerous trilled and non-pulmonic or even inhaled consonants. Many of the language’s sounds cannot be product in the human vocal tract exactly. We have a good set of information about the political structure of the primary nation-state, known as Equestria. They have two primary leaders, Princess Celestia, and Princess Luna. They are alicorns, which are the ones with the horns and wings.” On the screen was a frozen video image, apparently taken through a window. Showing a brilliant white alicorn sitting on her throne. “They seems to alternate how they preside, this one, Celestia, is the princess of the day, and the other one.” A similar picture pops up, but a dark blue alicorn. “is Princess Luna, who presides over the night.”

“Some observations that have been rather confusing is those appendages on the foreheads of the alicorns and of the unicorns of the ponies are functional. They glow when the ponies are performing telekinesis. Though that doesn’t seem to be the limit of their abilities. Transmogrification, teleportation, and quite a few other feats are regularly done by the ponies.”

“Magic?” This comes from Counselor Troi.

Data looks over at her. “I would hesitate to call it magic, counselor. While I do know understand or know the means yet, we have seen many species utilize technology to complete tasks that have appeared to be magic to us, as well as many life forms with abilities that are beyond are understanding as of yet.” He taps a few keys.

“True,” Counselor try nods, “My empathic abilities may be viewed as magic to some.”

“These are pegasi.” A pegasus stallion is pictured, white with a dark mane, a compass on his flank. “Sensors indicate their gravity is ninety-six percent of Earth normal, yet they can fly. This specimen measured in at just over eighty kilograms, yet his wings are only twenty percent of the required size for that mass. Yet he flies with ease.” He tapped the PADD again, and the pegasus took off, flying off at a surprising speed. “Pegasi have been observed at altitudes greater than any bird on record and exceeding the speed of sound. While scans of the clouds indicate they are entirely normal in the sense they are made of water vapor, the pegasi have been observed to land, and even walk on the clouds. Without detailed close up scans, I cannot begin to explain those abilities.” He tapped a couple more times bringing up another picture. “They even shape those clouds into homes and live in them. They have a massive cloud city, floating around the continent. I have not been able to deduce how this is possible based on the information at hand.”

“Interesting.” Riker said softly.

“Wait a moment, they fly, and land on clouds? The unicorns do magic? What about the ponies without horns or wings?”

“From the translation matrix, they are called Earth ponies. They are the most numerous of the ponies, they grow the majority of the food, they are the builders, the craftsmen of the ponies, entertainers, just everywhere. And they have their own unique abilities themselves.”

He taps the padd, bringing up another video file. This one shows an orange mare with blonde mane and three apples on her rump. She calmly walks up to a tree that looked diseased, she turned around and bucked it, smashing the trunk and knocking down the tree.

Worf leans forward. “An impressively powerful kick.”

Data nods. “And they seem to have a strong aptitude for growing things. Observations have shown Earth ponies spreading seeds, and within minutes germination is above the ground level, and hours later, growth is equivalent to several weeks of growth of known plants. Though I cannot discount there might be some genetic variation, though the plant growth does seem to exceed known biological limits.”

Picard shifts in his seat. “How utterly fascinating. What of the other species?”

Data looks at his PADD. “While they are mostly organized into some form of government, it seems that the Princesses of Equestria are responsible for the sun and the moon, so they are the primary government we would need to work with. More study would be needed before we approach them. As it is, we do have sufficient information to begin negotiations. We can communicate the seriousness of the situation to them, and hopefully make arrangements for transporting them off of their world.”

Riker looked from Data to Picard. “You do know that won’t go over very well. I will have to…”

“No, you won’t, Number One. I will.”

Riker inhales to object and was stopped by the Captain’s outstretched hand. “I know your objections, and they are noted. This requires a negotiator, with diplomacy, delicacy and finesse.” He looks at Worf. “I will beam down to this Princess Celestia, alone.”

That had Worf shifting in his seat. “I would prefer that you had security with you, Captain.”

“I shall carry my phaser. He stands up, adjusting his uniform. “But my decision is final. Though you can keep a transporter lock on me, and if anything untoward happens, which I don’t think will happen. You can beam me back.”

“Captain. It is quite near sundown in the crown city. Would you want to wait?”

“No, this needs to be handled delicately, I will talk to her as privately as possible. Remember, this is a pre-warp civilization, and I don’t want their first contact with extra planetary civilizations to be rudely beamed up into a colony ship before their planet is literally carved up before them. I will talk to her.”

In a matter of minutes, Captain Picard is standing in the transporter room, his best operator at the controls. “Energize, Mr. O’Brien.”

He forces a smile on his face as the energy of the transporter takes him, and in only seconds, he is standing in a large bedchamber. At its center a round low bed with large pillows in a semicircle along one side. A fire burns in a large ornate fireplace, and several dressers and tables are against the walls.

A chime sound of telekinesis reaches his ears as and draws his attention to the alicorn as she pull off the regalia he had seen her working in on the display.

Turning her head, she looks at him and flicks an ear, Celestia speaks softly and gently, “Should I call for the guards?”

“My name is Jean-Luc Picard. I am here because your world is in great danger, Princess Celestia, and we need your help.”