For the Homeworld

The mare looked back at her existence. How she got to this point. Ah yes it was one night back at her old home.

* * * * * * * *

Care Sager played her flute in her apartment facing the night sky. She played a tune she made while staring at the stars one night. It was a calming tune and she needed it tonight. Tomorrow was a big day. She paused her playing and looked out the window to the night sky.

Two centuries ago we learned that their world was changing for the worse. The deserts encroaching on habitual lands. Pegasi have done their best but honestly they have only been buying time. The various nations of our world started looking for solutions but when one of your satellites picked up a massive metal object in the Great Desert gave us renewed hope. A sizable portion of the ponies of Mareland thought all of us equines didn’t originate from Nod but from elsewhere.

My grandmother was part of the expedition to see if that belief was true. It was not remotely easy. While Mareland formed a coalition with several nations many other decided war was the option to take what resources were left. The base that launched the expedition actually fell. Then they faced the Tribe of the Desert, a group of cultist horses that lived in that desert and saw what we were doing as heresy. Forget our world is dying they would not let us try to save us all But what her grandma’s biggest obstacle was the betrayal of Maregypt forces. Original sent from their own base to assist grandma and for a while they did. Heck our forces helped them out of a jam against the Tribe of the Desert and they repaid us by sabotaging our resupply efforts to they could claim the prize solely for them. They paid for that and we defeated the tribe claiming the site.

I walk to the window and pit my hand on the glass and looked to the sky. What grandma found was a wrecked starship. It was true, out there somewhere was Equis….our home. Our world changed when the word got out of our origins. The coalition grew and the bulk of our focus on studying the wreck and using the technology inside to build a ship to get us off this dying planet. Right now in space the Hope of Marack is being built. The construction was going well, however the same could not be said for their systems.

I moved away from the window to my work desk. Oh simple systems were being installed and working fine. The issue was the core. As we searched the wrecked ship called the Applejack we found deep with in a sphere. It was clearly the core of the old wreck. She studied it cracked it open and looked inside. It was hallow minus a ring floating in it. We found cables seemingly to connect to something but what we didn’t really know. We assume a processing core of some kind. But all our attempts to out one in has failed. The data stored in the core is massive and every processor we tried got fried trying to handle the load. I looked at diagrams of the core and my latest processor to handle it.

“Please work.” I asked the processor and headed to bed.

I awoke the next morning with a yawn and got out of bed. A quick sonic shower and I went to the mirror to do up my mane. Probably like most that like on Marack I slept in the nude. Buck, with the way things are we barely wear anything anymore. I have seen the records. What’s standard ware today was risqué two hundred years ago. I wearing basically a bra and a loincloth. Anything more would to hot. Putting on my hat to protect my brain from the sun’s heat. Grabbing my things I headed to the lab.

Taking the cab I observed the capital. Most buildings were domes of apartments, each filled with hundreds of families and a communal area that contained the bulk of the last green of the planet. Them the green houses and water contain the last vestiges of life on the planet. Besides our cities the world was just rock and sand. Despite the bleakness I saw pegasi flying in the air. Some kids having fun playing with each other. It made me smile. Though a unicorn I did have relatives who were pegasi. There was life there was always hope.

My cab pulled into the lab and tipped the driver. Showing my ID to the guard. We still had some opposition to security was needed. I walked through the lobby, my breasts doing a slight bounce. I smirked. I was a damn sexy unicorn mare. Sky blue fur and butter mane. I would be a catch. Well maybe when we have a new home I will start looking. Why start a family now anyway, we are trying to leave the planet. Afterwards when we are on Equis or a more habitable world. That is the time to start a family.

I entered the lab and my coworkers saw me. “Hey Care, you ready for today?”

“As much as I can be.” I look over the screens. “How are things looking?” The mare an earth pony Sand Dune looked back at her screen.

“We have your processor in the core and checking the connections now.”

“Good.” I said with a nod. The various screens showed either data, graphs, or video of the core. Soon she saw the technicians leave the core.

“Techs reported in. We are all hooked up and ready to go.” I put my arms on my hips.

“Then let’s get started. Activate the processor.” I replied as Sand types the commands in. And soon the temperature rose a tad as the processor took power. But it held at that temperature. “Alright let’s lower the firewall and let it communicate with the core.” More typing. And I watched the screens and soon the temperature was rising. “Need more coolant.”

“Injecting coolant.” The temps stopped rising for a couple seconds before it rose again.

“More Coolant!” Again a slight pause but again rose. I slam my hands on the desk in front of me. “WE NEED TO GET THE TEMP DOWN!” More typing but it was a losing battle. Soon feeds from the processor died. I sigh as Sand gave me the news I already knew.

“The processor fried doctor.” I nodded.

“Gather what data you can. Debrief in an hour.”

“Got it doctor.” I gave her a nod and headed to my office and deal with the fact.

We had failed again.