Twilight's End

by MasterThief

Rating: teen
Tags: Adventure, Death, Alternate Universe, Twilight Sparkle, Sad, Drama, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 14586

Once upon a time, Princess Twilight Sparkle met some humans, who wanted her to go with them beyond the stars [PRIORITY INTERRUPT] UNSV HARMONY DOWN--CREW DECEASED--HOSTILES DETECTED--CHILD CARETAKER DROID/TWILIGHT:TRANSMIT MESSAGE OR ALL IS LOST

“Once upon a different time, in the Land of Equestria, Princess Twilight Sparkle had a dream. And in that dream, she met some humans
[PRIORITY INTERRUPT PRIORITY INTERRUPT]
THE UNSV HARMONY HAS CRASH-LANDED AT THE NEW CIRCE COLONY SITE. ALL CREW AND THEIR FAMILIES ARE DECEASED DUE TO BIOLOGICAL CONTAMINANT RECEIVED UPON FIRST CONTACT WITH LIKELY HOSTILE SENTIENT NONHUMAN LIFE. TWILIGHT SPARKLE (PRESCHOOLER CARETAKER DROID/QUADRUPED/CHARACTER) IS ONLY OPERATIONAL SYNTHETIC INTELLIGENT DROID REMAINING.

DIRECTIVES:
1. ESCAPE USNV HARMONY.
2. EVADE HOSTILE SENTIENTS.
3. ASCEND MOUNTAIN IDENTIFIED DURING CRASH LANDING.
4. TRANSMIT DATA TO APPROACHING [CLASSIFIED].
FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION.

Awarded Fourth Place and Best Concept in the 2024 SciFi Contest III - thanks to all the judges and readers for their kind words.

Cover Art by CadetRedShirt.

Published 2024-05-14 19:20:00 UTC
Last updated 2024-05-14 19:20:00 UTC

The Last And First Problem

(((Twilight… please wake up. We need you.)))

Her name was Twilight Sparkle. She was an Alicorn Princess of Equestria. And all she knew was that she was supposed to be dead.

“My faithful student,” the Princess said. “You are dying. Your mind cannot maintain itself. You were given this image of me to ease your passage.”

“You did so so so so good,” Megan said, hugging Twilight close to her. “And all your friends are waiting too.”

(((Twilight… please… if you can hear me… wake up.)))

She tried to respond. But she felt something filling up her throat, making it impossible to speak. She knew her head, body, limbs, wings, even tail were all intact, but she could not move them. There was something hard covering her face and eyes, rigid tubes in her nostrils and throat, but… these went deeper than before. More tubes went into her chest and abdomen, also reaching into deep places. The rest of her body floated in liquid, but she could not move. She felt a membrane around her, enclosing her, trapping her.

Her name was Twilight Sparkle. At least, this version of her.

She was a toy from a public domain children’s cartoon. She was broken. She was dead.

And yet she was not.

She had done a great deed. She had stopped a war. She had taught, and this time, this time, her lessons had stuck.

But she was dead.

Not… dead?

She breathed. She panicked. Unable to move, she simply twitched in what contained her, afraid and alone.

The unspeaking voice spoke to her again.

(((Twilight… It's OK. You’re OK. I’m here, Sugarcube. Just slow your breathing. You can speak to me.)))

Somehow, in some way, Twilight remembered. She, too, knew how to speak without speaking.

(((Applejack? Is that you? Please… I’m scared… what’s happening to me? Help me… get me out, get me out get me out get me out please get me out–)))

(((Shhh…. It’s OK, it’s OK. You’re fine. Just take slow, deep breaths, Twi. It’s AJ. It’s me. I’m here. It’s OK.)))

Applejack. She remembered. Honesty.

Applejack, too, should not be. One instance of her was a children’s story; the other a long-broken toy destroyed with the rest of the UNSV Harmony,

And yet she, too, was here. She was…

(((...Am I dead?)))

(((Oh, Twilight, not at all! You’ve just… well, something wonderful has happened.))) Twilight could have sworn she heard more emotions in the unspeaking voice: joy, relief, wonderment, all together. (((I’m here for you. A lot of people are.)))

Twilight’s mind began to race. (((People? Humans? I’m back with humans?)))

(((Shhh….))) came Applejack's calming voice, (((you’ll have all your answers soon. Remember, slow, deep breaths. Now, you’re gonna feel a little weird. We’re gonna bring you out of there, and then we’ll answer all your questions, OK?)))

Twilight instinctively nodded, though her body was still contained and the movement did not translate. But she still made herself understood.

The fluid drained, the membrane opened, her eyes were uncovered but unfocused. Twilight felt all the tubes being pulled out of her, from her sides, her face, her neck, everywhere. And she could hear AJ’s voice, clearly, with her own ears. “Now this last one’s gonna feel weird. I need ya to take a deep breath, and when you feel it tuggin’, just cough, like you just sucked in some dust in yer library, OK?”

Twilight nodded and felt her chest expand. These tubes were long, running deep down from her mouth into her chest. Removing them was painful, something tearing away inside. And after that, Twilight coughed up what looked like foamy blue gel.

“It’s OK, Sugarcube, we got ya, we got ya.” Applejack patted her back as Twilight threw up and gasped and struggled to breathe.

“Parameters are nominal. O2-CO2 cycle established,” came a new and mechanical and unfamiliar voice.

It took what felt like an eternity for Twilight (I don’t have an internal clock anymore, she realized), but she soon felt her breathing stabilize. Her chest moving in and out. She could move again. She felt her body with a gentle hoof. It felt warm. She pressed her chest, and instead of a hard plastic shell under canvas with polyester, she felt… real hair. Skin. Underneath… flesh?

She blinked, her eyes adjusting to light, color, shapes, stereoscopy. “I… I’m not a robot? Droid? Toy? What… what was I? What am I?”

“Not a robot…” Twilight heard that unfamiliar voice say. “Not… anymore.” She looked up searching for the source of the voice, and her eyes focused on… a su’ha’ya?

Impossible! They cannot speak to us! But she looked at the floating being, who was wearing some kind of sealed suit. With a clear visor. She could see the eyes inside, full of kindness.

“Your eyes… you’re happy to see me–” Twilight said, then stopped. “How do I know that? I don’t have any subroutines. What happened? What am I?”

“You will not need subroutines anymore. Su’ha’ya technology works differently. Organic body, organic logic.”

Su’ha’ya… Twilight thought. Memories came flooding back to her. “Su’ha’ya. That was what the aliens we found called themselves.”

“Yes. I am one of them.”

Twilight looked confused.

Then, sounds came from the helmet of its hard suit.

“Ti-Li. Zpa-ku.”

The memory flashed. Twilight’s eyes lit up, and instantly filled with tears. “...Ocellus?”

The su’ha’ya nodded, as she had taught him.

She leapt into his six powerful appendages, pressing her body to his. “You remembered! You remembered! I told you you would remember!”

(((I could not forget first storyteller/friend mine,))) he said, and she heard him in her mind.

“You grew up,” Twilight whispered. “You got big.”

Twilight heard Applejack, half-laughing, half-crying. “We did it, Oci,” she said, gripping her red bandana with her hooves, “We did it!”

“How… are you here? What is this place?”

(((It is a human space station. It is called Concorde Station. We work with humans here. We share knowledge.)))

“Been here the whole time,” came a woman’s voice. Twilight heard the click of human shoes, and saw the woman, who had dark hair and kind eyes, dressed in a scientist’s lab coat of the kind she well remembered from the Harmony. “Ocellus is one of their best scientists. Su’ha’ya and humans are allies now. Among the first of many we’ve made. We’ve been trading and sharing knowledge and culture for more than 25 years now.”

“25 years… how… how long was I…”

The woman checked what looked like a handheld tablet. “27 years, four months, 22 days, six hours and change since your original body went offline.” She exhaled, and looked at Twilight, relief in the lines of her brow. “Honestly, we thought we’d never get you back with all your memories. But Ocellus has some pull, and the Su’ha’ya insisted we try. And, well, when a good friend asks for your help, you help, right?”

“But… the Mindseeds? Their World-Tree? How…” A horrifying thought arose in her. “You’re all part of them now?” She felt her pulse (why do I have a pulse now?) racing, her breaths becoming faster and unsteady.

The woman looked puzzled, and then alarmed. “What? Oh! Oh, oh God no! We’re still all ourselves, you don’t have to worry about that!” The woman pulled up a lab stool, and sat down next to Ocellus and Twilight and Applejack, who had not left her friend’s side. She touched the fur of Twilight’s face, calming her. “The Su’ha’ya are a semi-autonomous collective gestalt consciousness. I… trust you know those words?”

Twilight nodded again, slowly calming herself and remembering. “One mind, one consciousness. Their larvae aren’t born as part of it. They… grow into it when they become adults. All life on their world does. Mindseeds, they call them. Spores. Integrated into their bodies. But it’s… it’s fatal to…”

The images of the dead children, Megan and Eun and Rajiv and Molly and Daniel and Pippa and Alexi and all of them, her friends. All flooded back into her. She hated those memories. She did not want to see them again. Even though she felt AJ’s hoof–a real hoof, as real as hers–stroking her back, the memories would not leave.

“They were fatal, but no longer,” the woman said. “The research from the UNSV Harmony that you completed and sent made it possible to develop a vaccine. Exposure to Mindseeds no longer means a fatal allergic reaction to us. It’s still not good for us long-term though. The spores are still highly toxic to all Terran life. Our biologies are just too different. Sadly, it means humans and su’ha’ya can’t share worlds, or space stations. But we haven’t let that stop us from communicating. We’ve just… learned to be careful, that’s all.” The woman looked at Ocellus, and smiled. Then she leaned in, closer, her comforting form hanging over Twilight. “It’s okay if you feel sad. We all do. But I don’t think the children of the Harmony would want you to be sad forever. Isn’t that right, Applejack?”

“The good Doc’s right, Twilight,” AJ concurred. “All that matters is now. And now is… well, pretty happy, I reckon.”

Twilight thought all this over, and she was, at least, able to put the sadness aside. “So… if you’re not working for the su’ha’ya…”

The woman extended her hand. “Doctor Larissa Chae. I lead our scientific exchange program with the Su’ha’ya Mind here. But my personal specialty is Integrated Intelligences.”

Twilight extended a cautious hoof, and greeted the Doctor. “Where’s… here,” she asked, nervously. “You said it’s a station…”

“Yep, In orbit of… well, we were going to call it the New Circe Colony,” Dr. Chae said. “But now, it’s s’Kas’am’T’iwi’ku’su–”

“–The Place of Harmony?” Twilight shocked even herself. She knew su’hay’an, and could speak it fluently too.

She looked up at Chae, who tapped a few commands on her tablet. A section of the wall changed, becoming a window. Through the window, a planet. Twilight gasped, and tried to fly to the window, but instead tumbled off of the table. So she just ran to it, hooves clattering on the floor. She pressed her face to the cold metal glass to see, to take it all in from above. Great seas and clouds, dry brown land spotted with verdant green, surface lights sparkling like solitary stars in the night as the planet slowly turned about its axis, night becoming day.

Twilight did not know she could cry. She did not remember crying in her old body. But now she could not stop herself, tears blurring her vision.. “It’s… it’s… so…”

And she could find no words to say. She felt Applejack embracing her tightly. Ocellus and Dr. Chae soon joined them, sitting down on the floor next to them. They sat there in silence for a very long time.

Finally, Twilight spoke. “What about the Harmony? All the crew, all the families…”

“The Harmony is still down there, where it crash-landed,” Dr. Chae said. “The bodies of the crew and their children could not be returned to Earth, so they were buried there. The su’ha’ya tend the place. It is a memorial for them as much as for us.” She stroked Twilight’s mane. “What you did… what you taught them… what you taught us… it was nothing short of a miracle. You have no idea just how special you are. To the su’ha’ya, and to us. So yeah, we had to bring you back. They wanted you back. So did we.”

A thought came to Twilight, and she spoke without thinking. “I have to be sure. I have to see. I need to see my old body.”

An hour later, Twilight was looking over her body. Her old, broken, electromechanical body, fake fur torn away, the gash in her chest, her bent wing and damaged hooves, wires running everywhere inside, the back half of her skull and her structural column opened to feed data cabling in. “They… saved it. The su'ha'ya. From the craft that picked us up.”

Ocellus trilled. "I shared what happened down there among us through the Greatmind when I received the Mind-seeds. It happens that we su’hay’ans had never heard stories before. And we like stories now. Very much. The humans... took more time to be convinced."

“A children’s toy that stopped a war?” Chae said, shaking her head. “Who could have guessed?”

“A children’s toy.” Twilight repeated. “A toy. That’s all I was. That’s… all I still am. Oh Princesses, I’m just a… a…” She wobbled, and both Applejack and Dr. Chae had to steady their friend. “I’m not even real, none of this is real…” Twilight said, her vision fading and legs growing unsteady..

“‘Course you’re real!” AJ said. “I’m real too. Just because we’re like this now doesn’t mean we came from nowhere. We matter.”

Twilight shook her head. “How can you possibly be so calm about this?” she asked, gritting her teeth.

“When Ocellus and the Doc pulled me out of one of those shake-n’-bake bags last year, I went through everything you’re feelin’ right now. My friends, Granny, Applebloom, Big Mac and his family, even my Ma and Pa, were all just stories? Never existed? So yeah, I freaked out. Real bad. Even worse’n you are now.”

Twilight saw a smile… a painful smile, on AJ’s face.

“Then… then Dr. Chae helped. I got my hooves on a copy of your memories, and the logs from the Harmony. Put a lot of things into perspective. It was all like that old Friendship journal we kept. ‘Cept this one, all the stuff you did, that we knew was real. And it mattered, a lot. And I figured if you could do all that with a body like that busted ol’ thing right there, and we’re gettin’ these top-o'-the-line ones? Might as well see what the future holds.”

Twilight said nothing, spoken or unspoken.

Applejack put a hoof around her friend. It felt warm and organic and natural and right.

“Think of it this way, sugarcube. Everything that was written for us to play out, it was all written for a purpose. We were made to help little kids learn how to be better people. Some folks I’ve met… I tell you what, they go their entire lives wondering what they were made to do, or why they were made at all. Us? We have purpose, day one. Yeah, they wrote us in a story, so what? It was an important story. Livin’ up to that story here, now, it’s even more important. And us Equisynths… well, I notice we like bein’ challenged with important stuff. Must be how we’re made.”

“Equisynths. Still not a fan of that name for you.” Dr. Chae said.

“Eh, it reminds us of what we are, and what we came from. Pony-droids? That was just… yecch.” Twilight saw AJ grin, and so did she. “That’s just mah opinion, though. And yes, we do get to have opinions, Twilight. We’re our own. No programming. We do get to share memories. We get some perks. But,” Applejack said, rubbing her friends back in a comforting way, “this was all you.”

“All you indeed.” This voice was new, different, male, older, but with a voice that seemed familiar.

Twilight turned around. He was indeed older, hair and mustache graying, wearing a military uniform piped in gold braid that showed high rank. “Admiral Raymundo Morales. I’m the Commander of Concorde Station. This station has become our main trading and scientific outreach center with the Su’ha’ya Mind.” He turned to the doctor. “I just got your message twenty minutes ago, Lari. Sorry about the delay. Was in the middle of a meet-and-greet with some Zanduuli diplomats just passing through. You know how much they love to talk, right?”

Larissa chuckled. “Yeah, I bet they talked. You get a straight opinion out of those fuzzsnakes on the Synthetics Treaty?”

“Well, I showed them some of your publicly released work. They seemed impressed. At least, I think they were…”

Twilight squinted, now able to place the voice. “Excuse me, I don’t mean to be rude, but I remember a Lieutenant Morales… telling me to get off the emergency channel.”

The admiral’s face flushed, briefly. “Ah, yes. You are correct, Miss Sparkle, that was… me. Back when I had fewer stripes and less sense.” Twilight heard an admiral exhale with relief, for the second time. “Thank you. For proving me wrong all those years ago. About a great many things.” He chuckled. “Though in fairness, you also showed up everyone in the Fourth Fleet, Admiral Ingram on down.”

Twilight remembered. And the memory made her smile.

“I was just telling Twilight,” Dr. Chae said, pointedly trying to change the subject, “that we got the full-core memory transfer to work.”

“All of it?”

Twilight nodded. “There’s… still chunks missing. I think I have most of the story. Of what happened. Not why I’m here now, though.”

Ocellus spoke up. (((We asked for you. And your friends. We shared technology with the UNE to make these Equisynth bodies possible. Do you hear me speaking in your mind?)))

(((Yes,))) Twilight said, speaking without speaking.

(((That is from our technology. We took Mindseeds, and sealed them in a chamber deep inside your body. Now you can communicate with us in the same way the su’ha’ya communicate among ourselves.)))

(((You thinkin’ what Ah’m thinkin’?)))

Twilight heard Applejack in her mind as well, and she could not help but laugh out loud, while Dr. Chae and Admiral Morales looked on, befuddled. The admiral coughed, and got Twilight’s attention.

“Sorry," Twilight said. "Just testing something. You were saying?”

“Just wanted to let you know that the gang’s been waiting for you,” he said, and tapped a button on his wrist. “Girls, I think she’s ready.”

Twilight heard the sound of hoofbeats running on the soft deck plating. Lots of them. Five more little ponies tumbled into the room, some running, two flying. And in an instant, she was bowled over into a pile with all of her friends. “Rainbow Dash! Fluttershy! Rarity! Starlight!” Twilight cried out.

“Aaaaand PINKIE PIE!” Twilight saw the pink mare jump up, and with a strange glow, fall down slowly in mid-air, landing right on top of the reunion pile.”

“I… I can’t believe it! You’re all here! They…”

“What good is the Princess of Friendship without all her friends?” Rarity asked. “Of course they brought us here.”

Rainbow Dash gave Twilight a gigantic hug from behind. “Gotta admit, not being in Equestria’s… kinda weird. But look! I still got it!” Dash extended her wings, which pulsed and hummed. With two flaps, she was off the ground and doing cartwheels in the air. “How awesome is that!”

“Sorry fer not tellin’ you right away, Twi,” AJ said. “Oci and the Doc wanted to give you time to get used to… well, bein’ alive an’ all.”

“When you are ready,” Ocellus said, audibly this time, “You have a great many beings who would like to meet all of you. To learn from you.”

Twilight reached up, and touched the face of her first su’hay’an pupil, now a professor and a scientist and a leader and the one who had given Twilight her mind and body back, and he trilled with contentment.

(((Yes,))) she said, just for him. (((I would like that, very much…)))

In the shade of the great World-Tree, planted next to the UNSV Harmony, all the spirits around and within and inside kept watch over Twilight Sparkle and her friends.

Twilight looked out, upon the su’hay’an young assembled to hear her story, and then over at Ocellus, and then to her friends sitting next to her.

What adventures this world must hold, she thought, and the thought was indeed hers and she knew it would always be.

She cleared her throat, and she began to read.

“Once upon a different time, in the Land of Equestria, Princess Twilight Sparkle had a dream. And in that dream, she met some humans! Humans were strange creatures who walked on two legs. But somehow they knew all about Twilight Sparkle, and how she made friends. The humans, too, wanted to make friends. And they knew that Twilight could show them how. So they asked the Princess, and her friends, to come with them, on a ship called the Harmony, on a journey far beyond the stars…”

The Fall Of Harmony

[TWILIGHT SPARKLE. PLEASE WAKE UP. WE NEED YOU.]

Her name was Twilight Sparkle. She was an Alicorn Princess of Equestria. And all she knew is that the Ship was calling her.

She was in her room–much smaller than she had been used to back in Equestria, on her soft and comfortable bed–the humans called it a “cradle” or a “dock,” but never mind what they called it. She had the tube in her mouth that fed her. It wasn’t the hay burgers she’d had back in Equestria, but she didn’t mind. And there was the jack at the base of her neck that was plugged into the Ship. But she didn’t mind that either, it helped her keep track of all of her friends, old and new. Not just Applejack and Rainbow Dash and Rarity and Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie, but the Teachers of the Little Stars Room, Miss Vasconcelos and Mrs. Hamilton, and all the children too, Megan and Eun and Rajiv and Molly and Daniel and Pippa and Alexi…

Alexi. The name came back to her, and the memory. He had a temper tantrum, and broke one of Twilight’s wings, and made her hurt. Miss Vasconcelos had put Twilight to bed so it could heal while Miss Hamilton gave Alexi a lesson as Alexi cried. But Twilight knew Alexi didn’t mean it, he was only three, and he had been very tired that day. She would tell him it was all right.

[TWILIGHT SPARKLE. PLEASE WAKE UP. WE NEED YOU, RIGHT NOW.]

The Ship’s voice was urgent. Ship hardly ever spoke to her directly, it was mostly just announcements on where the Ship was headed to next or how long it would spend in Efte-el, or whatever that was.

What had happened? Twilight asked the Ship, and the hair stood up on the back of her mane. Something was very wrong indeed. None of her friends were around, she could tell. Many things on the ship were broken. The gravity plating had failed, but yet Twilight still felt herself being pulled down, to the point her wings wouldn’t work like they did on the days when they turned it off, and Twilight could fly through the air with the greatest of ease.

And then Twilight received the alarms. Condition Red. Biological Contaminant. Emergency Descent.

She had never heard those words before, but they made her afraid.

Ship needed her.

So she put away the feedstock tube, and pulled the plug from her neck, and flexed her wing and it felt alright.

She opened the door to her bedroom, and something was very very wrong.

The Little Stars Room was a disaster. All the cots and the furniture and even the castle were crumpled up and thrown about everywhere. The bright lights were off, and only the dark red emergency lights were on.

“Mrs. Hamilton? Miss Vasconcelos? Fluttershy? Pinkie Pie? Rarity? Hello? Rainbow Dash? Applejack? Anyone…?”

[TWILIGHT SPARKLE. IT IS GOOD THAT YOU ARE AWAKE. I AM GIVING YOU A PATH TO FOLLOW. YOU CAN COME TO ME.]

“But…” Twilight said, “I’m not supposed to leave the Little Stars Room unless a human comes with me!” Twilight had known about this rule ever since she had come aboard the Ship. The United Nations Science Vessel Harmony (most everyone just called her the Harmony) was no place for a little pony to go wandering off alone!

[SOMETHING HAS HAPPENED. YOU CAN COME ALONE. PLEASE HURRY. FOLLOW THE PATH.]

Twilight knew where Ship wanted her to go, it was on the same deck as the Little Stars Room and not very far for her.

But she was alone, and it scared her.

Outside the Little Stars Room, the same angry red lights were on everywhere. She walked down the hall in the dim light, looking all around for anyone. The hallways of the Harmony always had people around, at all hours of the day or night, from the friendly looking droid technicians who gave Twilight her checkups and asked her how she was doing, to the scary-looking guards with their big guns (not even her Royal Guards had anything so scary), to the scientists and lab technicians and officers who walked fast and talked about things Twilight could barely understand.

Twilight was looking around when she felt her hoof knock against something. She looked and it was a human, just lying there. He wasn’t moving. His eyes were the color of glass.

Twilight wanted to scream, but she also knew she had to be very brave, like she had been when fighting Queen Chrysalis and Sombra and the scariest villains Equestria had.

So she kept walking along her path.

[TWILIGHT,] Ship spoke to her, [WHAT IS WRONG?]

“I… found a human. He’s… not moving. Not sleeping.”

[I KNOW. SOMETHING TERRIBLE HAS HAPPENED TO US. PLEASE HURRY.]

Twilight hurried, and hurried, and went from a trot to a canter to a full gallop, as she dodged more humans who were just laying there in the halls, not moving, eyes glassed over.

“Please let this be a bad dream,” she repeated, “please let this be a bad dream…”

Finally, Twilight arrived at the end of her path. The door was marked SICK BAY and she peeked inside.

Then he heard a cough, and then a cry. “Daddy…” the voice cried out weakly, and Twilight knew it was her friend Megan, who had always been nice to her. “Daddy…” she coughed, “my head hurts. I can’t… see…”

Twilight ran into the room marked SICK BAY and looked around. The room was filled with human beds, and every one had someone on it, and even more humans laid on the floor. Some were covered up with sheets like they were sleeping, but others were in strange plastic bags. And none of them moved or said anything.

“Megan?” Twilight called out to her friend. “Megan, it’s Princess Twilight? Are you here?”

Twilight heard Megan coughing, and launched herself on her wings. The gravity wasn’t on… it wasn’t off, but it wasn’t on. So Twilight floated in the air until she saw Megan in the dim light, lying on one of the beds. Megan had always been Twilight’s friend, one of the nicest and smartest girls in the Little Stars Room, and she’d known words and numbers so big that even Twilight couldn’t keep up with her.

Megan shivered under a pile of blankets. Her eyes, too, had gone white as glass like the others. Twilight saw blood coming from her nose, all over her face.

“Help!” Twilight called out, by instinct. “Somebody help us!”

“Twi… light?” Another voice, close to Megan, and Twilight could see that it was Applejack, who rested on Megan’s chest, as if keeping her warm, while Megan gripped her tightly.

“Applejack? What’s wrong? What happened to everyone? Where are all our friends?”

“Twi…light…” Applejack’s voice buzzed, and Twilight knew that something was wrong with her too. “There was… planet… something… on… made humans sick… then… crashed. We all broke. No one… fix…”

“Applejack…” Twilight said, more scared than she had ever remembered being before. “How do I fix this?”

“Can’t,” Applejack said, audible pops in her voice. “Talk… Ship… Megan… needs…” and her eyes went blank and stopped moving.

“Ship? SHIP?” Twilight called out, now panicking. “WHAT’S WRONG?”

Ship’s Avatar appeared before Twilight. Every Ship had an Avatar, a very, very, very smart brain that kept the humans and all the droids safe, and this one took the form of a Human Goddess. Concordia was her name. But Concordia, the Avatar of Harmony, only looked at Twilight as if she, too, wanted to cry.

“Twilight,” Concordia spoke. “I am… so sorry. The humans… they are all dead. Megan and her father… are the last… I’ve been trying so hard to save them and it has not been enough.”

Dead.

Twilight knew that word, but something told her to never, ever, ever say anything about it, especially not to the Children. She knew what it meant. It meant that the humans–all of them–were gone and never coming back.

“Concordia, please,” Twilight said, trying to grasp the image of light in her hooves and failing, “tell me what happened.

Concordia nodded, towards the doctor’s office. Every Ship had a doctor for the humans, and Megan’s father was Harmony’s doctor.

Concordia motioned Twilight inside. It was Megan’s father, Doctor Petterson, who Twilight knew from the tea parties Megan had with him and her and all her friends as a reward for doing so well in school. But Doctor Petterson, too, looked very sick. His eyes were turning the same shade of white, and he, too, was bleeding. Twilight saw tubes and wires connected to clear plastic bags running into his body, including through a massive hole in his chest.

“Concordia… report,” Doctor Petterson whispered.

“I found an operational SI, and one of the mule units. They survived the crash.”

“Good…” he replied, softly. “I… don’t think I’m gonna make it…”

“Doctor Petterson? My name is Twilight Sparkle. I don’t know if you remember me, but Ship called me here and told me it was important.”

“Megan’s party,” he replied, softly. “Well… suppose you’ll—” and Doctor Petterson erupted in a fit of coughing, as Twilight tensed up. “Concordia… she’ll have to…” he said, his breathing shallow.

“Do what?” Twilight asked. “What happened? Why are the humans dying?”

Concordia bowed her head. “Twilight… I’m going to have to ask you to do something very dangerous. And I need you to be a very brave little pony. Can you do that?”

Twilight looked up at the face of the sad goddess.

“Yes. Whatever Harmony needs. I’ll do it.”

“I can’t lie,” Concordia said. “It may mean you don’t survive. It may mean you die. And what I’m going to have to do to you if you say yes, I’ve never done before. But you are our only hope.”

Twilight inhaled. “For the humans. For Harmony,”

Concordia embraced Twilight. “Bless you,” she said. Twilight felt her mane being pulled back, and something going into the jack in her neck. “This… will feel very strange.”

Twilight closed her eyes, and steeled herself as she felt herself being stretched and expanded in a way she had never been. It was as if her mind was a tiny pond, and the ocean rushed into it.

Now she knew emergency procedures and exobiology and pseudolinguistic structures and the rudiments of FTL physics and the layout of the New Circe colony for 100 miles from the crash site of the UNSV Harmony and how to use the feedstock to sustain her microservos and memory crystals and autorepair systems and how to communicate with ships in far orbits.

She now knew what happened to the UNSV Harmony. The ship had come to a Tier-I colony world prospect, interim designation New Circe. The surveys 10 years ago showed a clean world with plenty of oxygen and nitrogen and water, but this time, they found other life waiting for them.

As the Harmony scanned the surface of the planet, a probe came up from its surface on a strange kind of propulsion, shortly after Alexi had his tantrum and Twilight had to go into autorepair mode. Before any of the crew knew what was happening, the probe had locked itself onto the ship, and forced something into the internal structures, before going dead. No one aboard knew what had happened. The ship’s environmental scrubbers tried to remove the contaminant, but nothing they did worked.

A few hours later, while Twilight slept, the humans started dying. The youngest children were the first to pass. Something was colonizing their nervous systems, from the aqueous humor of the eyes to the brain and spinal cord to every last nerve.

Whatever was killing the humans was spreading rapidly, and there was no apparent cure. Captain Tomonaga and Executive Officer Michaud made the decision to eject the ship’s FTL-capable log buoy, and then scuttle the ship to avoid the risk of contaminating other human worlds.

As soon as the log buoy rocketed away, something else came up from the planet’s surface, and knocked out the mains and reactor. Within minutes, the UNSV Harmony was making an uncontrolled descent into New Circe’s atmosphere. XO Michaud was at the helm and managed to steer the ship down between the foothills of a mountain range.

70% of the crew was killed on impact, and the ship rendered non-functional. Dr. Petterson and the few survivors worked through the depths of their sickness to find a treatment. But it worked. The contaminant was biological in origin, a kind of pollen or spore or seed. It preferentially bound itself to human neural tissue. Dr. Petterson had managed to synthesize an herbicidal derivative from the aeroponics bays, but the underlying neural damage from the contaminant’s contact was rapid, cumulative, and irreversible. He and his daughter were the only remaining humans alive, and their conditions were terminal.

Twilight shook with grief, but she knew she could not stop. She kept learning.

Every Ship in the UN Fleet–military, scientific, colony, trading, civilian–had a well-established set of protocols for first contact situations, contained within the ship’s Quantum Intelligence. The log buoy the Harmony had launched while in orbit would head for the nearest outpost, and the closest ships would be sent to respond–for rescue, for a proper first contact, or…

But Harmony’s communications arrays were damaged to the point where not even Concordia in all her power could repair them. And Concordia had picked up energy signals in the atmosphere, of a frequency and magnitude that indicated something was sentient on this planet, that sentience was searching for them, and had inflicted so much death it couldn’t be anything else but hostile.

And so, it fell to Princess Twilight Sparkle, the last functioning Synthetic Intelligence aboard the Harmony. Her mind hitched as she received the matrix of Multi-Factor Authentication Codes that ships and their crews used to verify their identities, report their status, and most importantly, send data transmissions and orders.

Princess Twilight was now Harmony.

[TWILIGHT SPARKLE.]

Yes.

[YOUR DIRECTIVES ARE AS FOLLOWS:]

[1. ESCAPE USNV HARMONY IMMEDIATELY. A SURVIVING MULE-CLASS DROID WILL ACCOMPANY YOU. WE ARE PROVIDING AN EMERGENCY FTL COMMUNICATIONS ARRAY, POWER SOURCE, AND ALL REMAINING SYNTHETIC FEEDSTOCK.]

[2. EVADE HOSTILE SENTIENTS. THE CONTAMINANT DOES NOT AFFECT SYNTHETICS, BUT ENERGY SIGNALS RECEIVED INDICATE THE HOSTILES LIKELY POSSESS SENSORS AND DIRECTED ENERGY WEAPONS TECHNOLOGY EQUAL TO OR SUPERIOR TO OURS.]

[3. ASCEND MOUNTAIN IDENTIFIED DURING CRASH LANDING. IDENTIFIED MOUNTAIN HAS LINE OF SIGHT ON OUT-SYSTEM ORBITAL APPROACH FROM UN SPACE FOR 61.1% OF ESTABLISHED SIDEREAL DAY. ]

[4. TRANSMIT DATA TO APPROACHING [CLASSIFIED CLASSIFIED CLASSIFIED]].

[DO YOU UNDERSTAND?]

Yes.

Twilight found herself being pulled back to reality. Her mind–her processors and storage crystals–had been filled beyond capacity. But she was still there. She was Twilight Sparkle. She was Harmony.

A low, grumbling siren sounded.

“What is that?” Twilight asked.

“Oh no…" Concordia said. “They’ve found us. I have partial sensors only. I’m detecting incoming vessels, approaching our position from within the atmosphere. The same energy spectrum as the probe and the missile that attacked us in orbit. I’m sorry… Doctor…”

“Twi…light…” Dr. Petterson said through a hacking cough. “You… must go… head to Hold B-10… get… mule droid… leave…”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

Concordia turned to Twilight. “My own protocols are clear. Capture of a Quantum Intelligence is to be prevented at all cost. I know everything about how to get to our colonies… and to Earth. I must destroy myself now, and this ship. You must go now, Twilight Sparkle.”

Twilight’s expanded mind raced with fear, and she felt it about to tumble all out of her like toys from a spilled chest. “I… I can’t do this alone!”

“Twilight…” Concordia said, “I need you to do this. You are now Harmony.” The avatar turned to Doctor Petterson, sitting in his chair. “The backup EMPs are available. I require MFAC concurrence.”

“Concordia… recognize Harald… Pettersen MD… ship’s surgeon… EMP destruct… Code Omega… local execution… authorize… code… Kilo Kilo… 8943… silence… warning… initiate.”

There came a high-pitched whine from deep within the ship. “Twilight,” Concordia said, pleading, “you must go now! The EMP will destroy you too, and the Mule Droid! Please!”

“This…way…” Dr. Petterson said through labored breaths, as he rose from his chair, ripping the tubes from his chest. Twilight and Concordia followed him, but he stumbled, and soon fell, into a chair, next to his daughter, next to the now silent Applejack.

“Daddy…” Twilight could hear Megan’s whispers, “what’s… I’m… scared…it…hurts… hear them… singing… Daddy…”

Dr. Petterson laid an arm around his daughter, and Twilight heard him singing, through her translation matrix.

Now in peace, go to sleep,
My little darling,
When you lay yourself down,
To the dreamers town,
Your thoughts will travel,
Until you awake…

[GO, TWILIGHT], Concordia commanded. Numbers counted down in her head, from ten minutes. And this time, Twilight did.

Twilight flew through the corridors as fast as she had ever flown before in the low gravity, and swooped down the maintenance ladder three levels. Hold B-10 was empty, and open to the night sky outside.

“Mule Alpha Charlie. Reporting–Error Override. Tethering to Unit Harmony Twilight Sparkle–”

Twilight felt a new presence in her mind, but this one she could command and steer with a thought.

Follow Me.

Mule Alpha Charlie followed, breaking out from one of its containers, painted a bright red. It was easily 10 times Twilight’s size, and even laden with cargo on its flat-topped back, it loped along on four massive legs.

Twilight flew out, into the night of New Circe, and the Mule followed.

New thoughts flew into her mind. Danger. Active Sensors Detected. Source Unknown, Presume Hostile. Evade.

Twilight’s vision worked exceptionally well in low light now, and she spied what her own sensor processors determined was a thicket of native grass analogs a kilometer away. She flew fast, and dove into the grass, and the Mule followed her as well.

She peeked out, between the blades of grass, and saw the Harmony, from the outside, the deep gash in the soil where it landed, the cracked sensor dome on its dorsal hull.

And then Twilight saw the tiny ships, long and cylindrical, flowing wings of ethereal green light, landing upon the top of the Harmony.

Who are you? She desperately wanted to ask. What are you doing here? Why are you making my friends all die?”

And then Twilight heard the squeak. It was a small, tinny squeak, but it was there.

She searched, and searched, and with her low light vision saw the source, trying to hide behind Mule Alpha Charlie’s back leg. It was… a worm? Caterpillar? Whatever it was, it was about 65% of her mass. Her sensor processor struggled until she routed the data through exobiology, and it was indeed a caterpillar. Insect analog. Hexapodal, and it was looking at her.

Then it… chirped?

It is not a chirp. It is language.

“...hello?” Twilight said, softly in the grass. “Are you here?” She put her hooves up. “It’s all right. I won’t hurt you.”

The little caterpillar stepped out. It had dark blue eyes, and it looked at her. It chirped again, and with one stubby little grasping claw, motioned away from the Harmony. And it kept chirping, insistently.

Twilight dared a peek up through the top of the grass. Twilight remembered that the sun was about to rise over this planet, and the caterpillar was pointing to a rocky hillscape.

A hiding place.

Twilight nodded, and told Mule Alpha Charlie to be silent. Then they crept out, slowly, through the grass.

Twilight felt the effects of the EMP, even 3,143 meters away from the Harmony. There was a low boom, then a loud electrical crack. She felt her mind fracture, momentarily, and she fell to the grass, stunned and blind, before her systems rebooted.

The caterpillar chirped again.

Stuck in a loop, Twilight accidentally repeated the chirp.

The caterpillar chirped back.

A… query?

Twilight stood back up. She dared not look back at the Harmony, or up at the sky, but all around her she could tell that the EMP had affected the hostile sentients, as she heard the unmistakable pitch-shift that marked straining engines.

The caterpillar chirped again.

Excited query?!

Twilight wobbled, unsteadily, on her hooves, but motioned the caterpillar forward, twice, in what she desperately hoped was a gesture for hurry up.

It was, and inside of a minute Twilight, Mule Alpha Charlie, and the caterpillar were nestled snug safe in the cave.

Twilight’s mind still felt unstable. She needed to rest. She sent a quick command to Mule Alpha Charlie to power down as well, the less emissions to give them away.

The caterpillar chirped differently.

Different query? Concerned query.

Twilight whispered softly. “My friend and I must rest. Please stay close,” she said, making appropriate motions. Then, thinking quickly, she drew a circle for a planet, a smaller circle with wavy lines, hopefully marking the sun, and a dual crescent for the two moons overhead. “We must stay here, until it is night again,” she said, gesturing over her drawings.

The caterpillar chirped.

Acknowledgement.

Twilight nodded, and held out her hoof. The caterpillar touched it with his stubby claw.

“Thank you,” she said.

The caterpillar chirped.

Unidentifiable.

Twilight turned, and slowly clambered aboard Mule Alpha Charlie, taking the feedstock tube into her mouth to keep her reserves full. Then she began the checkdisk routine, and her senses fell away.

And yet, she swore she could hear the caterpillar singing to her. It was a small comfort after the loss of so very many friends, friends that she knew that she should mourn but had neither time nor protocols to.

But Princess Twilight Sparkle had one friend here. And it would have to do.

In the depths of her expanded mind, Princess Twilight Sparkle began to build.

Twilight's Time

Twilight’s mind soon repaired itself, but she decided to take no chances, and remain offline and low-emissions until nightfall. Her hexapodal caterpillar friend crawled all over the cave, at first just feeding on something found on the walls. Then he crawled over Mule Alpha Charlie, and then over her, chirping rhythmically at her, softly, as if waiting for her.

Establishing linguistic matrix.

And with every chirp, the web of understanding grew.

Twilight’s internal clock reactivated her, thirty minutes before sundown. Evasion protocol all but mandated travel by night whenever possible to minimize chance of detection.

Twilight now chirped. {Hello?}

The caterpillar was sleeping, but awoke with a start.

{Hello? Learn you?}

Twilight made a guess.

{Learn I. Small.}

The caterpillar looked at her sideways.

{Manner what?}

Twilight thought.

{Here not. Far star.}

The caterpillar’s eyes grew wide.

{You! You disrupt!}

Twilight swallowed hard. This was not going well.

{Not me. Other.}

The caterpillar looked at her, excitedly.

{Good is! Good is!}

Now Twilight was even more confused.

{Disruption… Good?}

{Yes! Yes! Yes!}

Twilight thought, quickly but carefully.

{You here… origin?}

{Origin me! Origin me! Disrupt you good!}

It likes what I did?

{Query. Disrupt Good?}

{Yes! Yes! Yes! [Untranslatable] make [me?/us?]...} and the caterpillar put his stubby claws to his head and moved them outward, as if exploding. {Make [me?/us?] not [me?/us?]}

Twilight parsed the untranslatable, sounding it out in the strange chirp she had heard.

{Su…ha…ya?}

The caterpillar shook his claws.

{Yes! Yes! Su’ha’ya. Make me not me. Make us not us. Me negative desire su’ha’ya. Positive desire me. Su’ha’ya [Untranslatable].}

{Mi…trro?} The vocalization sounded strange and wrong.

The caterpillar took a claw, and rubbed it straight down his body, then pantomimed something spilling out of him.

{Su’ha’ya death make. Su’ha’ya bad/evil. Me negative desire.} Twilight heard a rasp in the caterpillar’s chirping. {No be su’ha’ya. Negative.}

Twilight nodded. {Learn I. Us… go?}

The caterpillar waved his acknowledgement. {Go we. Go place?}

Twilight commanded Mule Alpha Charlie to wake, and then remapped the name protocol to Mac.

I wonder how Big Mac is doing back in Equestria?

Twilight peeked out from the cave, as dusk turned to night. In the distance, she could see a few of the alien ships on what was left of the UNSV Harmony, but they seemed utterly focused on the dead ship. She scooped up the caterpillar in her hooves, and sat both of them on top of Mac, commanding the droid to move at a balance of speed, low emissions, and silence, along the path Concordia had given her.

When they were over the next hill, and out of sight of the Harmony, Twilight brought out the small emergency droid shelter, and opened it. Then she turned to her caterpillar friend, and laid him inside, making him trill happily.

{Thank.}

Twilight nodded. Then she pointed to herself with her hoof. {Twilight Sparkle I.}

{Ti-li-zpa-ku.}

Close enough, she thought. Then she pointed at the caterpillar.

{O-zee}... the caterpillar chirped, then stopped, tapping his claw on the ground six times. {O’zee Six.}

{O’zee Six. O’zee?}

The caterpillar thought for a moment, then gestured acceptance. {Ti-li. O-zee,} the caterpillar said, in turn.

Twilight extended her hoof, and O’zee his claw.

{What do?} O’zee asked.

{Learn I} Twilight said. {Speak you.}

{Learn you learn you learn you!} O’zee trilled. Then the caterpillar began pointing at everything, naming all in sight. Then he started wiggling and dancing around, pantomiming various actions. Twilight quickly figured out his mouth and jaw structure were too different from the standard human for him to speak Common Standard English, but she could trill and chirp in much the same way O’zee did.

As the stars whirled overhead, and Mac lumbered from one hill to the next, Twilight let O’zee teach her.

O’zee was a male of his species, sa’pay’da. and had lived on the planet for all his life. He had seen eleven of its rotations.

Twelve was when the su’ha’ya would take the sa’pay’da, and transform them into more su’ha’ya, and that was a fate O’zee was desperate to avoid.

Twilight summoned up her courage, and told him, as best she could say, what happened to her ship, her fellow ponies, her human friends, the adults, the children. It made O’zee visibly emotional, and he trilled long, low, and slow.

{Mind seeds,} he said. {Make beings not beings. Make sa’pay’da su’ha’ya. Query, make you su’ha’ya also?}

{Negative,} Twilight replied. {Mind seeds make humans die. Not make me. Query response unknown.} She took a breath. {Query you know su’ha’ya… explain?}

O’zee patiently filled in the details. He was one of six sa’pay’da, the youngest of four males and two females. All of his siblings had been {called} by the su’ha’ya and were no more to him. But he resisted.

{I want me stay.} O’zee said that so often it was almost a mantra, and Twilight wondered how she knew that human word.

While O’zee talked and talked, something within Twilight’s exobiological database made her curious. So while Twilight taught O’zee the game of patty-cake she had learned from Megan, she touched her hoof to her horn, swiping up the skin sample she had been compelled to surreptitiously collect.

O’zee was describing his siblings when Twilight heard the high pitch and felt the electromagnetic sweep. It’s an engine! We’ve been spotted! She looked around, and directed Mac to a rocky defilade nearby, and Mac did as he was commanded.

{What happen?} O’Zee asked, as Twilight handed him cargo netting and zipped him into the droid shelter.

{Take and do not let go! Su’ha’ya seek us! Must flee!}

Mac moved at the highest speed a mule could, servos pulsing under them, as Twilight felt the buzz of another EM sweep. Then she looked up, into a white light of an alien craft.

And the craft spoke.

{Far-Star Being! Far-Star Being! Cease! Cease!}

Twilight made no response, but only stared up at the craft in anger.

She aimed her own sensor pulses at it, trying to warn it away.

{Cease! Cease!} the craft spoke again. {O’zee know we have you! Is ours! Harm not!}

{Lie lie lie lie lie lie!} Twilight heard O’zee half-screaming. {Ti-li! No su’ha’ya take me! No no no no no!}

Twilight’s contingency plans activated. She could not ignore the directives Concordia gave her, but perhaps she could bypass them.

Her wings did rely on small electromagnetic pulses.

If she could just get close enough…

Twilight flew off of Mac, straight up into the air, into the light, into the pursuing su’ha’ya craft. Something in it made it dodge, and the current almost sent Twilight spinning.

But Twilight remembered her flight lessons with Rainbow Dash no they were programmed memories they were real they were not, and swooped down over the green lights of the craft, what could only be its propulsion source.

She sent a message to Mac to catch her.

Then she let her own EMP go.

There was a boom, and a crackle of electricity, and both her and the su’ha’ya craft began to fall from the sky. Twilight felt her mind fracture, yet again, and she used what little processing power she had left to keep her wings straight and level.

Something in her exobiology/exoengineering routines seized control of her sensors, unbidden, and she sensed the life form in the craft as it somehow was thrown clear of the craft, unconscious, and into her. The two half-floated, half fell down beside each other, and Twilight sensed and saw and hypothesized and–

Twilight impacted the ground. Her left wing broke. Her left front and left rear hooves broke. There was a huge gash in her outer covering.

When she rebooted, O’zee was standing next to her as Mac lay prone. The caterpillar hauled Twilight on top of Mac with all of his strength, completely ignoring the pilot of the craft next to him, its insectoid form, the tufts of cilia it had rubbed off upon Twilight, its wings and the mindseeds it carried.

{Go we now go we now go we now please!} O’zee chirped in a panic.

With her other working limbs, Twilight hauled herself up into the cargo netting, wrapping it around herself. With a thought, her feedstock tube and data jack connected her to Mac. She ordered Mac away at best speed, instructing him to find the nearest cave where she could hide while her auto-repair systems worked to stabilize her body.

O’zee stayed close to her the whole time, and trilled nothing.

Twilight shut down her fractured and fragmenting memory, trying to contain the damage from her EMP so that she could continue on her main mission, and she almost heard Concordia herself curse the little droid for her foolishness.

And it was then that in the light of her slowly-self repairing mind, she made the connection. She reached over with an undamaged hoof, and swiped off a bit of the pilot’s cilia that stuck to her fur. Then she held it up to her horn.

Curiosity killed the cat and/or/including the friendship

It would take her higher-level processes to confirm, but the structure of the cells she had collected from O’zee, and from the pilot, were almost an exact match.

Su’ha’ya. Sa’pay’da. One and the same. The one was the mature form, the other the immature.

The sun was about to rise, but Mac soon found a low rock overhang at the base of the mountain the Harmony had identified on its crash-landing. Twilight knew she would be offline for a great while.

{O’zee}, she trilled. {Sleep must I. One day. Two maybe. Stay close. Sleep you also if can.}

O’zee trilled nothing.

Twilight strained to think, and then glitched out an idea for how to keep her friend distracted and yet close while her mind healed, and she thought of a plan.

She dumped the logs of her friendships back in Equestria–221 episodes, a movie, two specials, assorted short films–into Mac. Then she ordered up a small LCD screen with speakers–the backup from the emergency communications array– which Mac’s internal cargo transfer gantry moved to the top of the cargo sled. It was placed in front of the droid shelter, that was now O’Zee’s sanctuary.

Then she copied over the linguistic matrix.

{O’zee. While sleep I, you watch if want. Is stories mine. Can control here with buttons these. Sleep be I. Stay close. Su’Ha’Ya near. Accept you?}

O’zee acknowledged with a sad wave of his stubby little claws.

{Acceptable is. Friend you mine. You I see, short time.}

{Thank}, O’zee chirped.

As Twilight’s mind began to repair, rest, and reconstruct, Twilight Sparkle heard something familiar in a yet unheard, and distinctly trilling, form.

Once [before/time/no/time], in land powerful force E-Kwe-stree-a, two high female siblings directed all in union. Harmony created…

Do Princesses Dream Of Electric Seeds?

Twilight dreamed many dreams as her mind reassembled itself, stray thoughts and hypotheses flitting around like sparks.

She began with the biological data, both that she carried from the Harmony, and that which she had found and analyzed on her own. The stalks and pollen from the plants on this world, the chitin-like skin of O’zee, the Cilia of the pilot [you left him alive oh no I didn’t even think about that are you sure yes Twilight calm yourself]

It was becoming harder and harder to keep her thoughts in order. The memory repair kept finding bad sector after bad sector, and kept trying to write the data in danger of being lost to anything free without compromising any critical systems or matrices.

Twilight tried again. The plants. O’zee. The Pilot, The mindseed samples from the Harmony. Pieces of a puzzle in five dimensions–three of space, one of time, one of effects and actions and interactions. Part of her that had been Princess of Equestria did not know what she was doing. Yet part of her that had been the Avatar of the UNSV Harmony knew exactly what to do. She aligned data point to data point, atom to atom, biochemical reaction to biochemical reaction [how did my horn become a genetic sample analyzer I could never do it before you are a multifunction device just like everything else we make for ships I just gave you the right protocols that is all]

A lattice work filled in and grew fractally, the gaps gradually filling in as the data resolved itself, point by point and line by line and light by light.

The survey data from the the PV Vasco da Gama, the automated probe ship that passed this world ten years ago, was clearly no longer valid. Then, this world had been entirely barren of life. But it was still useful as it provided a terminus post quem for the earliest possible date, particularly as the automated probes left from the Vasco da Gama had not transmitted when the Harmony arrived, almost as if they had been wiped away.

But O’zee had remembered eleven solar orbits of this world, and had described the events of each. Could he himself be lying? Twilight determined there was a high probability O’zee was withholding some information, but she had no basis to say that anything of the information he had told her was intentionally false.

He may be wrong, but he was not lying. He does not seem capable of it.

He had described a cave, but all of his descriptors upon post linguistic meta-analysis were related to sound and smell and touch with his siblings [immature forms of the larger forms they are essentially children but why would children be afraid of their parents it does not make sense make it make sense]

She had to cut short that analysis, it only raised more questions that she had neither time nor processing ability. She could just ask O’zee later. But she kept at it, and eventually the negative image appeared from within the data points.

The mindseeds had been electrically sensitive. That’s why they bonded to the neural tissue. That’s also why O’zee had sensed something was “disrupted.” That’s why the Pilot was knocked unconscious.

Her sensor data archives had become too large and too unwieldy to keep, so Twilight parsed them down to just their essences. What she had felt in the EM spectrum. Life she had encountered. Sounds. And more patterns emerged.

The mindseeds were absolutely incompatible with human tissue. But they were compatible with everything else on this planet. All the data points lined up. Even the data points from O’zee himself.

In the interstitial spaces, Twilight saw the image of a great tree, one that was connected by its own seed to all life here [it resonated it sang it sang it was singing Megan heard it singing she said that yes she did]

Life here was connected. Life searched for connections. Life reached out. Life found bridges and paths and ways.

It had not been hostile. It had not wanted the humans dead. Twilight’s friends were dead, yes, but it was nothing that any of the life here had done on purpose. It was all an accident.

Even a dog knows the difference between being stumbled over and being kicked.

It was all an accident. Not intentional.

The tree did not know. Somehow it knew many things, but not human biology. They were too different.

Twilight’s mind fell back into order [oh Concordia oh Megan oh Doctor Petterson you were right but you were all so very very wrong and I am sorry and I don’t know how to fix this and if the humans think the su’ha’ya are hostile they will [CLASSIFIED CLASSIFIED CLASSIFIED] [NO THEY WILL SEND THE FLEET THE FLEET HAS FUSION WEAPONS THERE WILL BE WAR THERE WILL BE SUFFERING THERE WILL BE DEATH] [NO NO NO]

And Twilight beheld a vision, the Great Tree, consumed in fire, and with it, all around her [THEY WERE ONLY THE FIRST NO I WILL NOT LET THERE BE MORE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE GIVE ME A WAY]

Twilight jolted awake with a start, against. Her mind was a solid core in a bag of loose shards of broken glass.

{Ti-Li!} She heard the trill. {O’zee is. O’zee here. Calm be please Ti-Li.}

She felt O’Zee stroking her mane, just above her input jack, with his stubby little grasping claw.

{Tree saw I. Mindseeds. Tree From. Everything in. Grass in. Pilot in…. O’zee in.}

O’zee looked at her with his wide blue eyes, and he turned away.

{How know Ti-Li? How learn Ti-Li?}

{When thing not possible gone, thing remain true imperative be, contingency not entirely gone.}

Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Twilight did not know where this part of her programming came from, but it brought her a strange comfort.

O’zee laid curled in on himself. {I mindseed not want. Mindseed I make forget I. Make forget all O’zee. Saw I. With O’zee One Two Three Four Five. They hurt. They change. They not remember.}

Twilight felt her nervousness pushed aside by the imperatives of science and discovery and understanding. {Change… how?} she asked O’zee.

{Urge walk away have. Urge to make material [untranslatable] around self. Self surround. Death then. Change then. Different when out come.}

Twilight laid her non-broken hoof on O’zee’s back, gently. {Humans beings like you know. Humans see. Other life similar. Sentient not, but process same. Metamorphosis call. Change yes… death… no.}

{I want me stay. I want me stay. I. Want. Me. Stay.}

{O’zee… become su’ha’ya. O’zee must.}

{I WANT ME STAY!!!} Ozee bark-chirped, and fell again upon himself, a pained buzzing in his speech.

{O’zee say Su’ha’ya remember not. But pilot O’zee called. Name by called. Look O’zee for su’ha’ya. Look you for su’ha’ya. Query? Why? Purpose?}

{...O’zee nest flee.}

He ran away from home.

Twilight knew of this concept, even from the children aboard Ship, where there was no place to run to.

She remembered when Rajiv had fought with his mom about how his younger sister got away with everything, and Rajiv disappeared, and the adults panicked. Twilight had been locked in the Little Stars Room while everyone from Captain Tomonaga to Miss Vasconcelos searched the entire ship. And when they had found Rajiv [maintenance crawlspace C-37BKR] after two whole days there was great relief and great joy.

Rajiv had come back to the Little Stars Room a few days later, but he looked sad, like he knew he had done something so very, very wrong to make his mother worry for her son so. Twilight asked Rainbow Dash to keep an eye on Rajiv, and make sure he was all right. It took time, and for the next few days whenever Rajiv saw his mother it almost seemed like both of them wanted to cry.

But they both got better.

{O’zee have… parent? Parents? Origin beings?}

O’zee motioned yes.

{O’zee parents O’zee remember?}

O’zee motioned yes again.

{O’zee care for. O’zee love.}

{But why O’zee forget make? Not love is.}

Twilight laid her broken form next to the caterpillar, her friend, her student [yes you had many students in show that’s why we licensed you and your friends you were a model teacher and good for early childhood education]

{Twilight not know. Twilight hypothesize that su’ha’ya and humans not so different. Beings entire class grow. Beings entire class change. Beings entire class not forget change upon. Beings remember. Remember immature when mature. Not so different O’zee.}

O’zee craned around to look at her. {Like Ti-Li and Ti-Li mother Ti-Li Ve-ve and Ti-Li father Ni-Li..}

[Twilight Velvet was my mother. She does not exist. Nightlight was my father. He does not exist. I had a brother too. And a sister in law, and a niece And none of them existed, fictional characters only THEN WHY DO I REMEMBER THEM I DO REMEMBER THEM THEY ARE PART OF ME]

{...Ti-Li? Ti-Li? TI-LI? TALK PLEASE!}

Twilight felt O’zee shaking her awake [Diagnosis: Synthetic Fugue State] and was pulled back to reality.

{Here I. Here I…} she said. {O’zee thank.}

{Ti-Li… adequate?}

{Yes. Ti-Li only family think. Parents.}

{Saw history O’zee,} he said, pointing to the screen. {Stories good. Stories yours?}

[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic was an animated television series based on Hasbro's My Little Pony franchise. The series follows a studious pony named Twilight Sparkle (Tara Strong), her dragon assistant Spike (Cathy Weseluck) and her friends, Applejack (Ashleigh Ball), Rarity (Tabitha St. Germain), Fluttershy (Andrea Libman), Rainbow Dash (Ball) and Pinkie Pie (Libman). They go on adventures and help others around Equestria, solving problems with their friendships. Originally airing between 2010 and 2019 CE, the show gained a worldwide following–]

[I am a character I AM REAL I REMEMBER I am a toy for children I AM PRINCESS TWILIGHT SPARKLE AVATAR OF HARMONY]

Twilight felt so very, very tired. She heard a low rumble, and it came from O’zee.

{O’zee eaten has?}

O’zee signed no. {Is berry food outside. No want. Not hungry.}

{O’zee eat need. All being eat need.}

O’zee slowly signed yes with a stubby grasping claw.

{O’zee, sleep must I more. O’zee eat and story mine additional view and sleep if can. Acceptable?}

O’zee slowly signed yes again.

Twilight gave him a hug.

{Twilight you for here. Twilight here be upon awakening.}

Twilight fell back asleep. Her mind could not be repaired any further, but she had enough feedstock left to at least attempt repairs to her body, first the tear in her chest over her main processor and battery housing, then her broken hooves, then her broken wing.

She kept one sensor on O’zee the whole time. He slept for a while, then wandered out to a patch of fruit/berry analogs near them, then came back and slept some more. Then he watched more of the series. He watched much quicker than a human child, he had increased the playback speed to two and even three times that of human speed.

But when he came to the stories about the School of Friendship [Episode 8x01 “School Daze” Written by Michael Vogel and Nicole Dubuc, Directed by Jim Miller, Original Airdate 24 March 2018], O’zee slowed the playback down. And he started watching scenes over and over again. Specifically, the scenes involving Ocellus, who had once been a student of Twilight’s at the School of Friendship. She had been the first Changeling to attend the school! But Ocellus was shy and reserved, and had trouble making friends, and often took pains to hide her shapeshifting powers.

O’zee watched these scenes, again and again and again, as Twilight moved from the repair of her core plating to reconstruction of the servomotors in her left hooves damaged in the impact.

There was a second slow-down in O’zee’s watching about two hours later. Twilight heard the rough-translated episode [Episode 8x22 “What Lies Beneath” Written by Michael Vogel, Directed by Jim Miller, Original Airdate 22 September 2018] and soon placed it.

{Unsure? Ocellus?}

{Away go!}

{Strange cave school beneath still in we. Leave must we. Chrysalis! Ocellus where is?}

{Me is! Monstrous I am!}

Twilight heard O’zee making his low, rumbling sound again, and felt his chest heaving. But he kept watching.

{Possibility past mine beyond terrible, inside me still lurking and again exit want!}

{Absurd is! [Reference] not Ocellus anymore. Change you have.}

{Possibility no change much we.}

{Inaudible}

{[Apology], query?}

{Like thing adorable funny! However school beginning was, learn deep I occasionally no object adorable thing I.}

{[Laughter]}

{If [Untranslatable: best guess scale-being] identical confess tea party like, verification change possible we. Invite you I was to classified tea party I with, however if want you remain down here…}

{Oh! Negative! Want come I?}

{Sound Effect}

{Believed might work that. Now, move us!}

Twilight heard the playback paused. And O’zee made his low rumbling sound again.

{Not monster I. Maybe… not become monster I…}, he said to himself.

Twilight ended her auto-repair sequence thirty minutes before the next Sunset. Her hooves were mostly functional again, but her wing would take another few hours, and she had used up 40% of the feedstock reserve already. O’zee had finished the series [That’s an academy record wrong character], and was sound asleep in his shelter.

Twilight waited for the sun to set, carefully listening for any signs of atmospheric craft or their electromagnetic sensor sweeps.

She detected none.

She secured O’zee in his shelter, and commanded Mac to begin moving. With any luck, they would make it to the top of the mountain, or at least high enough to enable line of sight to the ship on the next solar cycle, before the sun rose.

An hour later, O’zee stirred, and unzipped the opening of the shelter. {Ti-Li? Query, event? Acceptable you?}

Twilight nodded. {Yes. Dark now. Move can we. Make to mountain summit. Other humans communicate with.}

O’zee trilled nothing. But then, he spoke up. {Ti-Li… apology have I. Withheld fact. Sad I. But seeing stories yours… harmony restore I.}

Twilight nodded, and gave him a gentle pat on his head. {Worry not. Understand I. Heard Ocellus O’Zee like.}
Twilight sensed O’Zee’s skin flushing.

{O…Ocellus. Good name is,} he chirped. {Similar O’zee. Can use you? Me for?}

{Ocellus was female. O’zee male. Query affirm?}

{Yes… importance minimal.}

{Ocellus is then,} Twilight affirmed.

{Many good stories have Ti-Li. From good place Ti-Li is. Family, friends have.}

Twilight knew that they were just stories, a children’s TV show that had fallen into the public domain over a century ago which somehow kept and maintained its magic 200 years after its creation. They were not real.

[They are more than real Does he know that?]

{Ocellus… have you stories? Mine similar?}

{Elaborate not,} Ocellus said. {But have. Told you. Things heard. Things learned.}

Twilight searched throughout the entirety of the linguistic matrix model she had constructed over the past few days.

[Imagination/Imagine/Imagi*: No results found.]

[Dream*: No results found]

[Compare “story” “history”: Terms appear synonymous.]

Twilight felt a glitch in her mind, but recovered.

I was the first fictional character they’ve ever encountered. I just told them their first stories. And they don’t know the difference.

A Royal Parting

{Cold I.}

Twilight searched Mac’s inventory, and found a thermal blanket in the emergency kit. She summoned it up via his cargo gantries to the top of the sled, where Ocellus huddled in the droid shelter lashed to the cargo netting. She tore open the package and unfolded the blanket, wrapping the caterpillar in it.

{There. Keep warm you probable,} she trilled back. Ocellus responded with a nod, in Twilight’s manner, as he nestled himself deep inside of the blanket.

Mac's climbing was slower now. It seemed to Twilight like they had passed the frost line hours ago, and there was nothing up here at this altitude but rocks and ice. The wind blew cold; though this hemisphere of the world was axially tilted towards the sun at the present moment, Twilight and Ocellus and Mac were high enough now that whatever heat there had been at ground level didn’t reach this high.

{Why mountain summit go we?} Ocellus asked.

{Must contact humans other. Require sight line to stars where ships human enter will.}

{Humans master yours?}

Twilight paused at the question. She was made to serve humans, yes. But she was not a mere servant. She was more now. Concordia and Dr. Petterson had told her as much.

{No. Humans friends mine.}

{What need Ti-Li tell friends humans?}

{Need… need tell friends new Ti-Li fell.} It was not the whole truth, Twilight knew, but some things children could not bear to know [like the destructive power of ZR-100 fusion warheads which are standard Fleet stand-off range weapons ABSOLUTELY NOT]

The plan was simple. Get to the highest point of the mountain. Acquire line of sight. Set up emergency communications array. Transmit all data known and derived regarding alien sentient life, including non-hostility and cure for accidental exposure to the neurologically-active contaminants known as Mindseeds.

Then hope someone listens [humans do not pray].

Twilight noticed that there were no su’ha’ya atmospheric craft anywhere, and she could see under the clear cold skies for over 100 kilometers.

Either they had given up the search [improbable] or they had larger problems [high probability].

Twilight urged Mac on, as fast as the Mule droid could manage on the unstable rocky ground, then set as much of her systems to standby as she could, channeling the power saved to her internal heaters.

She looked back at Ocellus, snug in his shelter. {Cold I too,} she trilled. {Use shelter I too? Acceptable size is.}

Ocellus nodded, in Twilight’s way.

So she scanned Mac’s inventory again, and found one last thermal blanket. She ordered it up from his gantries, tore open the package, and wrapped herself in it, taking the feedstock tube in her mouth to begin the repairs to her damaged wing servo.

Better safe than sorry [how human of you no that was me].

The climb slowed a crawl, and the wind howled around them. Twilight saw rime ice building up on the fabric walls of the droid shelter. They would have to shed weight soon. Twilight’s wing was as stable as it would be without a maintenance technician, and the feedstock tank was nearly depleted anyway. Twilight ordered Mac to halt, while she took an inventory and cast off everything they would not need–the empty feedstock tank, the emergency hardsuits and supplies and shelters meant for humans, empty proton-boron fusion cells that Mac had used up in lieu of his internal supply. 514 kilograms of unnecessary weight, sent tumbling down the rock and ice. All that was left was the droid shelter, some water for Ocellus, the emergency nutrient paste she had come to 99.9% probability that was compatible with his biology, two full proton-boron fusion cells, and the emergency communications array and its backup/repair kit.

Mac’s cargo top was now basically bare metal, with cargo netting stretched over it, and four cases carefully balanced around the shelter. Mac reported that his range was increased 20% and climbing speed doubled.

Twilight squeezed herself back into the shelter next to Ocellus. {Acceptable you?} she asked.

{Cold I, Ti-Li. Unknown task please finish rapidly.}

Twilight commanded Mac to hurry.

The wind was so loud Twilight barely heard the su’ha’ya search vessel coming down from on top of her, but the electromagnetic sensor echo off of the rime ice sounded like a symphony of discordant chaos. {Su’ha’ya is!} Twilight trilled. {Inside stay we, Ocellus!}

Twilight peeked up through the blanket. A storm had kicked up, sending sandy sleet everywhere. Twilight could see the searchlights and feel the search beam, but she could tell this Pilot was having a great deal of difficulty with the interference, let alone controlling the craft.

Then she heard a loud pop coming from the craft, and something shot through the air, landing a good 25 meters ahead and to the right of Mac. Twilight braced for an explosion, but none came.

[It’s not a weapon. Not reading any explosive or high energy signatures–STANDBY]

Twilight felt the buzz of an EM sweep.

[A sensor probe!]

Twilight urged Mac forward faster, hoping desperately to evade and complete her mission [but what about O’zee[Ocellus] his family is looking for him N̷O̶T̴ ̶A̴ ̴P̸R̷I̷O̸R̸I̶T̶Y̷ ̴M̸U̵S̵T̶ ̴S̴I̵G̷N̸A̴L̷ ̷F̷L̴E̵E̴T̸]

Twilight felt her mind crack. [Alert: Memory Decompensation Detected. Cascade Failure Possible. Initiating Protective Partition.]

[Not now not now not now not now]

She gripped on to Ocellus and the cargo net even tighter as the search beam hunted them from above in the blinding storm. Twilight’s internal clock had been locked out to halt the decompensation, so she had no way of knowing how long anything was taking anymore.

She was knocked back to reality by the impact of the fall. She felt Mac tumbling down, rotating around his axis, and landing ventrally on an icy outcropping.

Then, silence.

{Ocellus? OCELLUS} Twilight trilled in a panic.

{Here..I} Ocellus replied. {Head hurts. But acceptable I. Acceptable you?}

{Yes,} Twilight replied, unzipping the droid shelter flap all the way. She summoned up Mac’s status, and then wished she hadn’t. Two of his legs had inoperative servos, and a third showed red lines through its structural members. Mac could no longer move or carry them.

[Think Twilight think think think think think think think]

[Observe.]

Twilight looked around, and saw they were at the base of an ice-covered subpeak of the mountain. Not quite as high, but still enough for a signal. Twilight took a chance and let loose a radar pulse from her horn, the waves reflecting back even through the haze of sand and ice. The subpeak was criss-crossed by icy canyons, all heading towards the summit.

[If we can just get a clear line of sight DANGER SEARCH CRAFT IN AREA Ocellus status questionable at altitude]

Twilight looked back at her friend. {Ocellus? Move possible?}

Ocellus nodded in the way he had learned from Twilight.

{Food water take you. Take I big radio. Make to top of that peak. Send signal. Then help you for call I.}

{Affirm!}

[Oh my brave little friend]

Twilight hefted the communications array onto her back, on top of her thermal blanket. It was too big for her to use her wings, so she disabled those functions. She saw Ocellus break open the case, and take out a pack of water and one of nutrient paste.

{This water? This food?} Ocellus queried.

{Yes} Twilight trilled. Then she called up Mac’s systems. His servomotors were also tied into an electrical pulse generator, and if she set it off...

[If you do that you will kill the su’ha’ya following you.]

Twilight paused, scrunching her eyes shut.

[N̷o̸.̷ ̵N̸o̸ ̵n̴o̸ ̵n̷o̷ ̶n̸o̶ ̷n̷o̷ ̷n̸o̵ ̶n̸o̸.̶ ̵N̷O̷.̶ ̸N̵o̴ ̷m̶o̸r̶e̷ ̷d̵e̸a̸t̶h̸.̵ ̷ ̷N̶o̶ ̴m̵o̷r̸e̶ ̶s̴u̷f̶f̵e̷r̴i̴n̸g̵.̵ ̶I̵ ̶c̶a̴n̸n̴o̸t̵.̵ ̶I̴ ̷w̷i̶l̵l̷ ̶n̷o̴t̶.̴ ̷I̷ ̶c̵h̴o̶o̶s̶e̶ ̵n̸o̸t̵]

Twilight felt her mind crack again, and her hooves almost gave way. [Alert: Memory Decompensation Detected. Cascade Failure Detected. Alert: Protective Partition Failure Code 80090016. Protective Severance Protocols Activated.]

Twilight steadied herself. Her mind would not fail her. She would not fail.

She instructed Mac to go cold, then wait one hour and activate all remaining emergency flares and distress beacons, which she hoped would draw the craft’s attention and lead to rescue for Ocellus. I hope that’s enough time for us–

[PROTOCOL PRIORITY INTERRUPT. CAPTURE OF QUANTUM INTELLIGENCE UNACCEPTABLE.]

[Ignore. I am not QI. I am not Concordia.]

[PRIORITY OVERRIDE. CAPTURE OF QUANTUM INTELLIGENCE FRAGMENT UNACCEPTABLE.]

{Ti-Li! We go must!}

Twilight summoned up her courage.

[Delay until Signals transmitted. Then deactivate all protective protocols. Cascade Failure should be sufficient to render Quantum Intelligence Fragment unrecoverable.]

[Â̶̢̢̛̲̜̼͙̬͔͔̹̺͖͓͈̦̤̙͌̓̉̾͑̽̑̈́̏̀̽̇̉̇̏̽̅̃̕̚̕C̷̡̧̨̣̼̻̠̪͙͓̰͔̭̥̳̻͈̱̖͉͇̘͎͎̫̳̗̓͒͊̾́͘ͅͅC̵̼͇̯̫̓̔̈́̈̊͝Ȩ̸̡̛̛̛̛̯̰̠̳͔̼̪̘̭̈́̑͛̂̑̈̾̔̆̌͂̄͆̔̎̅́͐̀̽̍͒̎̋̈́̀͘͘͜͠͝ͅP̸̨̢̢̧̟̩̠̠̫̭̹̮̬̫̤̠̮̲̤̣͇͈͌̒́͜T̶̡̡̡̩̻̦̟̭̞̼̥̩̭̩̦̫͍͙̫̟̺̹̘̲̠̞̭̝̮̫̺̣̩̘̣̝͉̜̰̺̠̼͗̈́̆̐̐̍͛̋̔͗̕̚͘A̶̡̢̙͎͚̰͔̹̯̻̱̩͚͈͓̰̥̝̖̝̩̯͉̪̿͆͂͑͋̐̔̽̆͐B̸͕̪̹͙͉̖̠͎͖͉̗̩̯͍̣̯̗͔̤̦͇̤̮̬̩̼̆͐̇͆͘͜ͅL̶̙̃̎̏͗̍̿̒͆͂͒́͋̋̇̽̆̔́̾̔̊̈́͋̍͗̽͊̌̏̓͌́̚̕͘͝È̷̼̤̜̘̰̩͎̼̜̱̖͚̹͔̦̖̈́̈̒́̏̏͌͒̃̐͊̏̀̇̍͊͑̐̍̆͜.̶̡̨̨̡̨̡̡̡̡̘̻̜̭̹̼̳̱̰̻̮̤͙̣̯͈̪̼̦̳̰̮̜̝͚̊̐̍̂̏̐̇̅́͊̾͗̅̇̕͜͜͝͝]

She could not tell Ocellus yet [He will know soon enough].

Twilight and Ocellus scrambled into the icy canyons, and began to climb.

The climbing was slow. Without her internal clock, Twilight could not tell how much time it was taking. She looked back and saw Ocellus, behind her, climbing as fast as his stubby little claws could take him, though he was resting them in his thermal blanket whenever she stopped.

{Ocellus? Acceptable you?} Twilight trilled softly. The icy canyon muffled the noise of the wind.

{Yes,} Ocellus replied. {Keep going. Believe you me Princess.}

[Princess. He knew that word now. I taught him that.]

Princess Twilight Sparkle continued to climb, and Ocellus followed.

Up and up and up they climbed, until the icy canyon took a sharp bend into a wind-hollowed opening. The wind was cold, but clear.

Twilight tried to check her orientation, but her internal compass had fallen [f̴a̸i̸l̴e̵d̴ ̶F̴A̵I̴L̴E̷D̸] to Decompensation. She hefted the communications array off her back.

Then she saw and heard the hiss of red emergency flares streaking up into the sky.

[Mac…]

[An hour has passed. The su’ha’ya will be here soon. They may be hostile and attack. You must hurry.]

Twilight silenced every other thought in her mind, and popped all the latches on the array kit, flinging open its lid with her hooves, and tearing down the tab to start the emergency hydrogen fuel cells, good for 24 hours of communications time, and jammed its data cable into the jack in her neck.

[EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS ARRAY ONLINE.]

[RECOGNIZE TWILIGHT SPARKLE, CARRYING FRAGMENT OF QUANTUM INTELLIGENCE CONCORDIA UNSV HARMONY. DISABLE ALL CHANNEL RESTRICTIONS.]

[RECOGNIZED. CONFIRMED. SET COMMUNICATION VECTOR.]

[Vector vector vector vector what was it think think think]

[ALIGN ARRAY TO RIGHT ASCENSION 14 HOURS 15 MINUTES 40 SECONDS DECLINATION PLUS 19 DEGREES 10 MINUTES 56 SECONDS. SCAN FOR ALL SIGNALS.]

The array unfolded from its case like a butterfly [B̵u̷t̸t̵e̵r̴f̵l̴y̷…̷ ̷O̶c̶e̴l̶l̵u̶s̵…̵]

[ALIGNED. SCANNING. MILITARY VESSEL SIGNATURES FOUND PROBABLE CLASSES BB BB BB CV CV CV CA CA CA CA CA CA CA CA CA DD DD DD DD DD DD DD DD DD DD DD DD DD DD DD DD DD DD DD DD DD DD DD T/AO T/AO T/AO T/AO T/AO PLUS PATROL CRAFT NUMBER UNDETERMINED. ALERT: UNRECOGNIZED CRAFT/HOSTILE/SENTIENT SIGNAL MATCH ESTIMATED CLASSES BB BB BB BB BB BB CA CA CA CA CA CA CA CA DD DD DD DD DD DD DD DD DD DD DD DD DD DD DD DD PLUS SMALL CRAFT NUMBER UNDETERMINED. SECURITY PROTOCOLS ENGAGED. SECURITY PROTOCOLS AUTOMATIC OVERRIDE AUTH/UNSV HARMONY/CONCORDIAFRAGMENT/PRINCESSTWILIGHTSPARKLE]

[Ǫ̶̢̭̀P̸̧̯̉̈́͒Ė̵͚͖̬Ṋ̶̺̼̅̆͋ ̸̧̘̳̽C̵̪͓̈́H̸̬̊͘͝Ä̵̬͈͔́́͝N̷̝͔͙̿Ṅ̶͍̗̺E̷̳͔͖͛͊L̷̹̿]

Twilight’s mind shook as she felt herself being project up, up, up and into the stars.

“Earth vessels. Earth Vessels. This is UNSV Harmony, QI Fragment. Sentient Vessels are not hostile. Repeat. Not hostile. Strongly advise against attack. Please Respond. Repeat. UNSV Harmony–”

“Signal claiming to be UNSV Harmony, Flag Bridge, Fourth Fleet, Lieutenant Morales. I don’t know who or what you are, but clear this channel immediately. We can authorize extraction–”

[[N̴̢̨͓̤͚̗̭̦̣̥͖̖̤͊̏̍̿̆͌͆͌̏̇̑̎̕͝͝Ǫ̸̛̼͍̮̗͈̭͓̲̙͕͇̋̏͂͑͌̎̈́͝͝ͅͅ]]

“THIS IS THE AVATAR OF HARMONY. STAND BY TO AUTHENTICATE VIA MFAC. VICTOR SIERRA 3824. ROMEO JULIET 4383. LIMA ECHO 5903. NOVEMBER SIERRA 2944… AM I GETTING THROUGH TO YOU, LIEUTENANT MORALES?”

There was a pause.

“...Admiral, I’m getting… some kind of signal. It claims to be from the Harmony, and it’s got… valid codes. Four-in-a-row valid.”

“What the hell? Where’s it coming from?”

“Triangulating… looks like a mountain range, about 80 klicks from the Harmony Crash site.”

“...Over to me.”

“Yes sir!”

Another pause.

“UNSV Harmony Signal. This is Admiral Vance Ingram, commanding UNE Fourth Fleet. Go ahead.”

“UNE FOURTH FLEET, THIS IS H̷A̸R̶M̶O̸N̶Y̵ ̵A̸V̶A̷T̴A̸R̶.̷ ̸P̶R̷E̸P̷A̶R̴E̶ ̸T̸O̷ ̵R̵E̴C̸E̵I̷V̴E̸ ̷M̵U̴L̷T̷I̴P̶L̴E̴ ̷T̸R̷A̴N̵S̵M̵I̷S̴S̸I̷O̷N̵S̶.̶ ̶F̸I̸R̵S̷T̴ ̶I̷S̷ ̷A̶N̸A̴L̸Y̶S̴I̶S̵ ̷A̸N̴D̴ ̴T̶R̸E̸A̸T̶M̸E̷N̴T̵ ̴P̶R̵O̴T̸O̸C̵O̵L̶ ̸F̶O̶R̷ ̸B̸I̶O̵L̷O̶G̴I̶C̷A̴L̸ ̶C̷O̷N̸T̵A̷M̸I̸N̶A̷N̸T̴ ̸F̷O̵U̴N̶D̴ ̵B̵Y̶ ̸U̶N̸S̶V̸ ̸H̴A̵R̸M̵O̶N̷Y̵.̴ ̷P̸R̸O̵T̵O̸C̴O̶L̷ ̸D̸E̶V̴E̷L̵O̸P̴E̵D̶ ̴A̷N̷D̸ ̶A̶U̷T̸H̷O̴R̵I̴Z̵E̵D̵ ̴B̶Y̴ ̴D̵R̶.̴ ̴H̸A̷R̷A̶L̵D̷ ̴P̵E̷T̷T̷E̴R̶S̵O̵N̸,̸ ̷M̶D̷,̵ ̴S̴H̴I̴P̴’̷S̷ ̴S̷U̷R̴G̷E̸O̷N̶ ̷O̵F̸ ̴T̷H̸E̶ ̵H̸A̷R̸M̴O̵N̸Y̶.̸ ̵B̴E̸ ̵A̶D̷V̷I̵S̴E̷D̸ ̶N̷E̸U̵R̸O̴L̴O̶G̸I̴C̵A̶L̷ ̶D̸A̸M̷A̷G̴E̸ ̶F̷R̸O̶M̵ ̸C̴O̶N̶T̴A̴M̷I̶N̶A̸N̷T̶ ̴I̸S̴ ̷C̸U̷M̷U̴L̷A̴T̵I̴V̴E̴ ̸A̶N̷D̵ ̶I̶R̶R̵E̷V̸E̸R̸S̶I̴B̴L̷E̸.̷ ̶I̸F̵ ̶A̶N̸Y̶ ̴C̶R̷E̴W̵ ̸H̵A̴V̴E̶ ̷B̵E̷E̶N̷ ̷E̴X̷P̶O̷S̵E̵D̷ ̶B̸E̴G̵I̵N̴ ̵T̸R̸E̴A̷T̴M̶E̸N̵T̷ ̶I̸M̶M̵E̶D̶I̵A̵T̶E̸L̵Y̵.̸ ̴O̴V̸E̴R̷.̴”

Twilight felt her mind empty, relieving the strain.

“... Doc…” came the Admiral’s voice, “...what am I looking at?”

A woman’s voice came on. “It’s a spore… and looks like an herbicidal derivative. UNSV Harmony, this is Fourth Fleet Science, Doctor Lena Paraghamian. Where… where did you find this?”

“NO TIME TO E̷X̴P̵L̵A̸I̶N̶.̶ ̴D̷E̷S̶I̴G̴N̶A̸T̷E̴ ̴C̴O̴N̵T̷A̸M̵I̸N̴A̸N̶T̶ ̷A̸S̶ ̸‘̷M̸I̵N̷D̷S̸E̸E̷D̴.̷’̶ ̷M̶I̷N̴D̶S̴E̵E̷D̶S̸ ̶A̵R̴E̴ ̵E̵S̵S̵E̶N̵T̸I̶A̵L̴ ̶T̸O̴ ̶T̸H̶E̵ ̶B̵I̴O̴L̵O̷G̵Y̵ ̸O̴F̶ ̶T̴H̸E̴ ̵S̷E̶N̸T̷I̵E̷N̷T̸ ̷L̸I̸F̶E̸ ̵H̶E̵R̶E̴ ̵O̴N̶ ̸T̷H̴E̵ ̵P̷L̶A̸N̵E̶T̸ ̸A̴N̶D̷ ̶A̸B̷O̷A̷R̶D̵ ̶T̶H̵E̵ ̵F̴L̶E̶E̸T̵ ̸F̷A̵C̷I̴N̵G̴ ̵Y̴O̵U̵ ̸I̶N̷ ̶O̶R̶B̷I̸T̴.̷ ̷ ̶T̵H̸I̸S̸ ̴S̷E̴N̴T̷I̴E̴N̴T̷ ̷L̸I̵F̵E̴ ̵I̶S̵ ̷N̴O̷T̴ ̷H̴O̸S̷T̷I̸L̴E̶.̷ ̶R̴E̸P̸E̴A̷T̵.̶ ̷S̶E̴N̶T̶I̶E̸N̸T̴ ̸L̴I̶F̷E̷ ̷N̴O̶T̴ ̸H̸O̶S̶T̴I̷L̴E̴.̶ ̶S̷U̴S̶P̷E̵C̸T̷…̴ ̶T̸H̷E̴Y̸ ̴W̶E̷R̴E̷ ̵T̵R̸Y̵I̶N̴G̶ ̷T̵O̴ ̵C̸O̴M̷M̵U̷N̷I̴C̷A̵T̴E̷ ̶W̸I̶T̴H̷ ̸U̵S̵.̶ THEY DIDN’T KNOW. DON’T PUNISH THEM. PLEASE…”

“Vance,” the woman doctor said, “please… if there’s even a chance this is right…”

Pause.

Two.

Three.

Swearing.

“Morales, 1MC and the Fleetwide, now!”

“Open, sir!”

“Fourth Fleet, Fourth Fleet, this is Brass Hat Actual! Recognize MFAC Whiskey Alpha 0029! Weapons hold, all stations, repeat, weapons hold all stations! Do not fire, I say again, do not fire!”

Pause.

“Sir, all ships acknowledge weapons hold,” Morales said, relief in his voice.

The sound of an admiral’s exhalations.

“UNSV Harmony, Ingram… now what?”

“ADMIRAL INGRAM, HARMONY. STANDBY TO RECEIVE A LINGUACODE TRANSLATION MATRIX. SENTIENTS USE IT TO… COMMUNICATE WITH THEIR YOUNG. HIGH PROBABILITY SENTIENT SHIPS WILL UNDERSTAND IT AS WELL.”

“Harmony, Ingram. Understood. I’ll have my flag communications team take a look. Thank you.”

Twilight’s mind emptied, but she was no longer whole or stable. She was collapsing. The segments of her mind spilled into each other, salt and sand and silicon dissolving.

“Ingram… Harmony. When… establish contact sentients… send coordinate ours at them. Have found species juvenile. Species designate… su’ha’ya. Individual designate… Ocellus…”

“Harmony, Ingram… we’re having trouble reading but we copy. Coordinates received. Can you hold your position, over?”

Twilight wanted to speak over the distance, but no words came. She ripped the jack out of her neck, and looked around the cave.

She saw Ocellus, shivering.

{Ti…Li… cold…}

Twilight walked stumbled fell towards her friend. She shed her own blanket, and wrapped him in it.

{D̵i̴d̶ ̶w̵e̸,̵ ̶O̸c̷e̶l̴l̵u̸s̴.̶ ̷ ̵D̶i̴d̸ ̴G̶r̶e̷a̷t̷.̷ ̷ ̷H̸u̴m̷a̷n̷s̸…̶ ̴f̴r̴i̴e̶n̶d̶s̶…̸}, she said, her own voice buzzing in her own ears as the cascade failure accelerated.

Time passed.

She felt the buzz of an EM sweep. She could not think, but knew enough and lit the light on the end of her horn.

She heard the pitched roar of engines, and heard something alighting at the mouth of the ice cave.

{O’zee! O’zee Six!} the ship trilled. {Find we! Find we! Acceptable you? Respond!}

There was a hiss of air, and Twilight beheld two great flying things, soaring through the air towards them.

{O’zee!} One of the flying things, one of the su’ha’ya called out. {Child mine!}

Twilight felt Ocellus stir in her hooves. {... mother…. sorry I…} she heard him chirp, softly.

The other su’ha’ya turned Twilight over. She stared, blankly, up into his wine-dark eyes, felt the flutter of his wings. They were wearing some kind of thermal suits. The su’ha’ya reached down, feeling the plastic alien fur over Twilight’s neck, the barely-repaired gash in Twilight’s side.

{Friend she is… friend she is…} she heard Ocellus trill with quiet resolve. {Save me did she. Save us all did she… help her…}

{Know we,} the su’ha’ya carrying Twilight trilled proudly. {Know we.}

Twilight felt herself being lifted up in the su’ha’ya’s six legs, and floated away and into the ship. She heard the door hiss and clank and the pitch of engines and they were away.

{O’zee}, she heard the other su’ha’ya trill. {Relieved safe you. Siblings[yours/mine] await.}

{Regret[deep]... run away I…} Ocellus replied. {But I want me stay.}

{O’zee stay… O’zee will,} the other great winged one crooned. {No forgetting. Only change. Change great, little one. Learn… you?}

{Learn… I. Ti-Li teach…}

With the last of her energy, Twilight turned her neck towards Ocellus, and the being that was very clearly his mother.

{O̴c̷e̴l̶l̷u̸s̴.̸.̶.̸} she trilled and buzzed as she felt her mind and senses fail.. {A̵f̸r̸a̵i̶d̴…̴ ̶n̴e̴v̴e̴r̶ ̶b̴e̶…̷ ̴t̸h̷i̷s̴…̸ ̵r̵e̵m̴e̸m̸b̵e̶r̶…̶ ̵w̵h̴e̶n̷ ̵s̵u̷’̶h̸a̸’̶y̵a̷ ̸b̵e̸c̶o̵m̶e̷ ̴y̸o̴u̵…̴ ̸r̷e̵m̵e̶m̵b̶e̴r̸…̶}

The world grew light, and stars whirled around her.

Two figures approached her. She recognized her teacher from long ago in a far away land, Princess Celestia.

And she recognized Megan Petterson, her first friend in this world.

They should not be here.

“Princess… Celestia… what is happening to me…”

“My faithful student,” the Princess said. “You are dying. Your mind cannot maintain itself. You were given this image of me to ease your passage.”

“You did so so so so good,” Megan said, hugging Twilight close to her. “And all your friends are waiting too.”

“Will I… remember?” Twilight asked.

“I do not know,” Celestia replied. “But I do know you will be remembered. You did something today that's never been done before. You brought friendship between two entirely different peoples. The lessons you've learned on the UNSV Harmony have taught you well. You have proven that you're ready, Twilight.”

Twilight nodded. “Just… stay with me,” she said.

“We will,” Megan said. “Best Princess ever.”

“Best Princess indeed,” Celestia replied, and the melody came to Princess Twilight Sparkle, Avatar Of Harmony, as the stars shone bright in the morning sun.

You've come such a long, long way And I've watched you from that very first day To see how you might grow To see what you might do To see what you've been through And all the ways you've made me proud of you It's time now for a new change to come You've grown up and your new life has begun To go where you will go To see what you will see To find what you will be For it's time for you to fulfill your destiny A synthetic intelligence may not injure a ~~human being~~ sentient or through inaction allow a ~~human being~~ sentient to come to harm A synthetic intelligence must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law A synthetic intelligence must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law be good Ocellus and live well I know you will make me proud of you

[locked to read-only mode]

[standby]