Exceptional

Phil and Statin stood outside the admiral's ready room. Both men stared nervously at the door control, working up the courage to open it.

“You first....” whispered the captain.

“Me?! Why me?!” Phil tried to yell as quietly as possible, so as to not give away their location.

“You were the one who lost us the probe.”

“How the hell was I supposed to know the modulator would fail! I may be smart but I'm not omniscient” Phil ground out between gritted teeth.

“And hey, he might go easy on you. He is-”

“Ok! Opening the door now!” Phil really didn't want this conversation to head down that road. Phil pressed the button to open the door, and upon opening, revealed an office-like room, with shag carpeting, a mahogany desk and three chairs, a painting of an ancient sailing ship on the back wall, and a large window to the left. A bookshelf lay to the right, undoubtably filled with books on military and naval history and tactics, and a large computer lay on the desk (the admiral stubbornly refused to upgrade). Said admiral sat behind the desk and Major Oliver in an opposite chair. The admiral looked up from his datapad, and for a split second looked relieved.

“Ah, captain, doctor. You arrived just in time for our riveting discussion on the soil erosion of Solaris IV” the admiral smiled an obviously fake smile at that “but I'm sure you have much more *important*** news to deliver.”

“Admiral! If our estimates of the soil coherency aren't exact, the colony's-!”

“Yes, yes. Save it for somebody who gives a damn, major.” Jessica looked quite perturbed at this, but the admiral ignored her. “Anyways, what do you gentlemen have to report?”

Phil paled, which was quite the achievement considering how pale he was already. That question was obviously directed at him, and now the eyes of everyone in the room were staring at him. The admiral didn't respond well to bad news, and Phil didn't respond well to pressure. Trying, with a similar amount of effort one would put into attempting to convince a Neo-Republican of the dubious nature of Saint Reagan (in other words a lot), to keep his anxiety under control, Phil hesitantly responded with as much confidence as he could muster.

“W-well a-admiral, uh.....funny story.”

“They don't have tentacles do they? Ever since I read those Lovecraft stories as a boy-”

“O-oh no no no, they don't have anything like that.”

“Well what do they look like?” Jessica responded, unable to keep the smirk from her voice or off her face. She could see right through his facade. Phil looked to Statin for support, but the captain was looking at an exceedingly interesting stain on the carpet.

“U-uh.....You know how I was joking about 'ponies' earlier, right.....well um....”

The next fifteen minutes were spent reviewing the footage from the probe's sensors, followed by another half hour when they watched it again....twice. Both Jessica and the admiral wore shocked expressions, which Phil recognized as the same face that he and Statin wore a few hours ago. When the holo-vid concluded for the third time, the two officers turned to the doctor. Jessica fixed him with a cold stare.

“You're fucking joking.” It wasn't so much a question as a statement of fact.

“Jessica, you know me well enough to know that I could never fake footage that convincing.”

“Right, you're far too incompetent to pull something like this off. Statin, was this you?” Phil bristled at her comment, but before he could respond Statin answered her question.

“Ma'am, as improbable as it seems, everything the doctor showed you is correct. That is what the probe saw. I even had the boys down in the science labs check it for any anomalies.....four times. That footage is legit.”

“But they're speaking fucking *ENGLISH*** for pete's sake!!!! The sheer improbability of that is-!!”

“Astronomical? Yes me and the captain have already had this conversation......it did not end well. I think it is best to leave the higher mysteries of the cosmos to more enlightened minds, and not to think too deeply on reality-shattering things like this. I would hate to have to clean the brains off my suit when your head inevitably explodes.”

“Oh and why have your brains not exploded, hmm?”

“Well, we all know I'm already insane, so this is no biggy. As for the captain, he's been through enough wars that I don't think he knows what sanity is anymore. Right captain?”

“Sure why not” Statin was suddenly looking very tired. Most people developed that expression when having to deal with the doctor for extended periods of time. Add on top of that the mind-blowing, reality-shattering, logic-raping discovery they had just made, and you've got the recipe for one hell of a headache.

“Well then” the admiral spoke up for the first time since the holo-vid ended. “While I am deliberating on what our next course of action should be, I have a new mission for the two of you.”

“Yes sir?” the two men chorused, the younger of them somewhat reluctantly.

“You two are going to go down there, and get us back THAT FUCKING PROBE!!!!!!!”

*********

Twilight stared at the tarp Spike had hastily set up in the library's main room. Taking up most of it's surface were the broken remnants of the mysterious orb. They had had to wait nearly half an hour for the pieces to cool down enough for them to touch them. Only after they had begun did Twilight remember she had telekinesis.

That had resulted in one rather epic facehoof.

Attempting to take her mind off of certain blunders, Twilight reexamined the remnants for what had to be the fiftieth time.

“Fifty-seventh!” Pinkie cried out.

“What?” Twilight looked at her confused.

“Just correcting the narrator” she said with her trademark empty-headed smile.

“Riiiight.......” Ignoring her strange friend, Twilight went back to examining the pieces for the fifty-seventh time. There were jagged pieces of broken carapace, melted glass and circuitry, and liquified bits of what she believed had once been plastic. Overall, there wasn't much left that could indicate what it was or who built it, which was frustrating to no end. Letting out a groan of frustration, Twilight levitated a certain piece out of the pile. It was a blackened shard of dark metal, with sharp, jagged edges that could most likely cause significant wounds to somepony not hoofing it with extreme care, hence her use of telekinesis. She looked it over several times, observing it from several angles. Just when she was about to put it down, the light reflected off of something along the inner curvature. Bringing it close to her face, carefully so as not to accidentally jab her eye out, Twilight stared intently at what had caught her attention. There seemed to be a series of indents along it, forming some kind of pattern. Hesitantly, she blew on it to clear away the charred ash, and was rewarded when her efforts revealed what the pattern was.

'Letters!'

Twilight read the words with some difficulty, several of the letters having been damaged in the explosion. “X-7 MkII Reco.....robe.....what in Equestria does that mean?” she mused aloud to herself.

“Ooh! Ooh! Maybe it's some kind of super secret, secret spy, secrety-pants code!! Where the letters are actually numbers, and the numbers are actually letters! Maybe it was sent by gryphons, they write like that where the letters are numbers and the numbers are letters....I think.... and then a gryphon spy will show up and and he'll shoot all the baddies and he'll be totally like 'the names Pond. Flames Pond' and then he'll get all kinky-winky with me and-!”

“Pinkie, have y’all been hittin' the smack again?”

“Smacking what, you silly-willy?”

“.....never mind” Just as Pinkie was taking another deep inhale to continue her rambling, the front door to the library slammed open, crushing her against the wall. (That's what you get for standing next the door, you fourth-wall-breaking, narrator-correcting.....pink....thing.)

“Guys! Guys! You're not gonna believe this!” Rainbow cried, before noticing the pink tail sticking out from behind the door. “O-oh....sorry Pinkie...”

“Itsh ofay”

“Anyways, I just got back from flying around town, and you are not gonna believe what ponies are saying!”

“What is it, sugercube?” asked Applejack as she helped a dazed Pinkie get out from behind the door. Dash gestured with her hooves, her face making the weirdest expression, her mouth going into a crooked half-smile, her eyes going slitted, and her mane becoming what could only be described as a 1st class hairicane.

"Aliens"

“Uh....beg pardon?”

“Everypony in town is saying that that ball thing was sent by aliens!” Spike, who up until now had been taking a short 'power' nap, quickly bolted awake, panic evident on his face.

“Oh no! It's the Cthulhoids!! Run if you want to keep your brain!!!” the miniature dragon dived out a nearby window in a brilliantly choreographed action sequence.....or he would have if Twilight hadn't grabbed him with her telekinetic grip.

“There is no such thing as Cthulhoids!!” Levitating him down, she gave him the 'no more choreographed action sequences' look before continuing. “There has to be a more reasonable explanation, like secret government technology, or a Minotauran Spying device. Just because we haven't seen something like this before doesn't automatically make it 'aliens'. The very thought that aliens not only exist but also would come to a place like Ponyville is just.....implausible!! Haven't you ever heard of Ockham's Razor?”

“Ooh! Is he that stallion that lives down the road who drinks lots of cider and has that thick Germaneigh accent?”

Twilight sighed. “No, Pinkie, that's Mr. Oktoberfest” She deadpanned. “Ockham's Razor is a scientific principle that can be summed up like so: the simplest answer is most likely the right one.”

“Oh? And what is the simplest answer?” Dash gloated while hovering over their heads.

“I....don't know. But we shouldn't jump to conclusions. We barely know anything about this thing, it could take days, even weeks for us to piece together a clue....” Twilight looked down dejectedly as she settled in for a long night of examining.

“I know! Why don't you just use that super-duper divination magic the Princess taught you that you were telling me about the other day, silly-willy?”

Everyone stared at Pinkie, save Twilight who facehoofed with such force she nearly gave herself a concussion. “Pinkie, you never cease to amaze me.” Twilight stood up and gazed upon the shards, focusing her energy. “Okay everypony, stand back, I'll need utmost concentration for this.” Scrying magic was difficult, especially when you did not have a link to the target, and most unicorns could hurt themselves just attempting it. Fortunately, she was not a 'normal unicorn', and the link was staring her right in the face. Twilight focused power through her horn, connecting herself with the astral plane, and when the connection was strong enough, she sent her consciousness outwards. She looked for the shards, and focused her power on them, unraveling the skeins of time to look at the orb's past. Her mind was soon overwhelmed by jumbled visions of a cold emptiness......

“The X-7 Mk II Reconnaissance Probe is capable of traversing hostile envro-”

“An Odin-class dreadnought carries a complement of twenty X-7 Mk II-”

“Dropping out of Hyperspace now admiral, we should-”

“-man, take us in closer to Solaris III, but make sur-”

“-let's get this show on the road!”

That voice....

“-might have been the baseball, capt-”

That *voice*......

“Does it FUCKKING *MATTER?!?!*”

Those eyes.......

“Twilight! Twilight! Snap out of it!” She was vaguely aware of someone shaking her, and she opened her eyes to see the concerned face of Rainbow Dash looking down at her.

“H-huh....wah...W-what happened? Why'd you break my concentration?!” Twilight's throat hurt, and her voice came out in a hoarse whisper. It was Applejack who answered, worry etched on her face.

“Twi....you were screamin' louder then a cow with a sore teat on milkin' day...” even when concerned the farmer didn't lose her folksy charm.

“I...I was?”

“Yeah. What exactly......did you see?” Rainbow asked, trepidation evident in her voice. Twilight could tell she was far more worried then she let on.

“I...I don't know....it was cold...and...and there was this voice.....” 'And those eyes'

“What kinda voice, sugercube?”

“It sounded a little like-” Twilight's eyes shot wide open. She recognized that voice. It sounded intelligent, confident, and had a vague Trottinghamish accent....

“Get back!! Everybody get Back!! This things gonna blow!!”

“F-from the orb! The one that saved me!”

“Uh...what?” was Dash's intelligent response.

“Before the orb exploded, it...it talked to me. It warned me about the explosion, told me to get away. It.....saved me. The voice from the visions....it was the same one!”

“Wait...so, it was...alive?” Pinkie's face fell as she asked the question, fearing that she had contributed to a living being's death.

“What? Oh! No I don't think so Pinkie. The voice...it sounded grainy, distorted, like it was coming out of a record player. That, and the scrying spell would have revealed if it was alive. As far as I could tell, it was an inanimate object.”

“Okie-dokie then!” her normal cheery demeanour making a comeback.

“Well I think we should-” Spike was interrupted as a loud belch exited his mouth, and with it a green flame that materialized into a rolled up scroll.

“Wow, I didn't expect the Princess to respond that quickly, we only sent the letter an hour ago.” Twilight levitated the scroll, unrolling it and beginning to read.

My Dearest Student

I apologize that I cannot take time out of my busy schedule to assist, dear Twilight, but the news of this strange unidentified flying object troubles me. From your description I myself couldn't think of a reasonable answer, which in of itself is worrisome. I would suggest a divination spell on this 'orb's' remnants to determine it's origin.

Also, Luna has told me that apparently some kind of object crashed into the Everfree roughly an hour before this incident with the Orb. She claims it was no meteor. Centuries of experience tell that this cannot be a coincidence. If the divination fails, investigating the crash site might reveal clues.

Your Proud Teacher

Princess Celestia

As she finished the letter, Twilight's face was set in determination.

“Girls, gather the others. We're headed into the forest....”