The Tale of the Super Secret Spaceship

Chapter 2

Twilight stretched her limbs and smiled as the morning sun streamed in through her window. Today was the day! There was no time to lose; that skyrock was her discovery and therefore her prize so great caution was necessary to ensure that the situation remained as such

“Wake up, Spike, it’s time!” She chirped, jumping out of bed.

“Time for another seven hours of sleep? I agree...” Spike murmured, pulling his blanket over his head.

“No, silly, it’s time to go get as much studying done as possible! In case you’ve forgotten, we’ve got something pretty interesting to examine.” Twilight’s enthusiasm refused to go away and Spike knew it, especially when she had an academic opportunity of such magnitude in front of her, and especially when it literally fell out of the sky for her.

“The only thing I wanna examine is a doughnut the size of Manehatten,” the dragon mumbled sleepily as he yawned and stretched. “Can we stop by Sugarcube Corner on the way?”

“Sure, Spike. But no extra icing this time. Remember last week?” Twilight replied, grabbing the saddlebag from last night.

“What? I apologized!” Spike protested. “It was all Pinkie Pie’s fault anyway. Her and that “super special awesome secret sweetener” of hers.”

“Well, at least Princess Celestia locked it all away in the Vault of Exceedingly Volatile and Otherwise Dangerous Sugar Substitutes.” Twilight said as she made sure everything was in order. “Ready to go, Spike?”

“Yep! Lead the way, Twilight.” With that, they set off for Sugarcube Corner.

Later...

“You hear something, Twilight?” Spike asked as they neared their destination. They stopped and listened intently as strange sounds emanated from Froggy Bottom Bog. The sounds resembled noises Twilight’s magic made when blasting things to oblivion (like invading Changelings) but she was sure that it wasn’t magic; of course, it had the expected effect of making her even more curious. They followed the “pew, pew” slowly and cautiously peeked out at the bog from behind a bush.

Zhane grunted in pain and fired his emergency sidearm at yet another Timberwolf, obliterating it with a blast of energy. No sooner had he dispatched what felt like the 50th one, another half dozen appeared, growling and snarling. Backed up against the Halcyon as it auto-repaired, he had to protect the fragile solar panels slowly recharging the exhausted and damaged ship. Those blasted...whatever they were...had already damaged one of the panels and Zhane was not going to let that happen again. He took aim and shot another just as it leaped for him but failed to see another two slowly creeping up from behind. In fact, he never would have noticed them at all had some kind of discharge caught his attention. He spun around just in time to see them get wasted by a white blast. Maybe there was someone else around, someone from the Alliance! Those dreams were squashed the second he laid eyes on his rescuer.

A small purple pony sporting a lavender mane and a small horn adorning its forehead stood at the edge of the swamp accompanied by a diminutive dragon-like creature. It was there sudden appearance that made Zhane take another look at his surroundings.

He face-palmed.

“Awe man, what kind of Mickey Mouse situation have you gotten yourself into this time, Zhane?” He muttered, putting away his sidearm as he looked over at the newcomers. “Thanks for the assist.” He sighed, realizing that he had just tried to initiate a conversation with a purple pony. Still, it was a big galaxy and strange things had happened throughout his rather illustrious career. Although, this one definitely takes the cake, he thought as he slowly came to grips with his new environment. At least the locals seem friendly, although this pallet-color world’s something else. He looked around and then back at the pony and its companion. “My name is Zhane Martin. I’m a pilot with the Cosmic Earth Alliance. What is your designation?” They simply stared back at him, apparently tongue-tied. He sighed once again. “Do you have a name?”

“Ahem,” the purple pony cleared its throat. “Yes, sorry about that. My name is Twilight Sparkle.”

“Awesome. Where am I?” Zhane asked absentmindedly as he inspected the damage. Considering how many worlds he’d seen, something like this was relatively work-a-day but even so, it had been a while since he’d come across anything like the creature that slowly approached him.

“You’re in Equestria!”

“Fantastic. If you don’t mind me asking, what exactly are you?”

“I’m a unicorn and this is my friend Spike. He’s a dragon.”

“Ah. Gotcha,” Zhane replied absentmindedly as he examined the ship’s left wing. He sighed with relief; nothing a few days of repairs couldn’t fix. Of course, that meant spending a few days on whatever planet he’d had the good fortune of crash-landing on. Wait, what are you doing? This obviously an unexplored planet! Maybe the C.E.A doesn’t even know about it! As a pilot and member of the Alliance, it’s my job to meet and interact with alien civilizations even if they look like something out of some cheap kid’s cartoon, he thought as he wiped his brow. Besides, she probably saved my ass back there. “I’m sorry, I’m just a bit distracted. My ship’s been damaged and I’m trying to figure out the extent of it.”

“That’s...a ship?” Twilight asked as she took a tentative step forward, obviously very curious. Zhane held out towards it and the unicorn was suddenly all over it as if it was suddenly the most interesting object in the known universe.

“I’ll take it you don’t have too many of these ‘round here,” Zhane guessed as he hopped in the cockpit.

“I’ve never seen anything like this before! Twilight exclaimed. “I don’t think anypony has, at least not that I’ve ever read about.”

“You’re a student?” Zhane asked as he looked over incoming damage reports and specs. “That’s cool.”

“Thanks,” Twilight replied as a burning question sat on the tip of her tongue. “If you don’t mind me saying, you don’t seem very...surprised by any of this. I thought that since you’re somewhere you’ve never been before, you might be worried or something but you seem pretty calm about this.”

“You don’t miss a trick,” Zhane said from the cockpit. “It’s a big galaxy out there. I’ve seen a lot of things. This is definitely something different but I’m not too worried or anything.”

“I’m glad,” Twilight said with a smile. “Spike, are getting all this?” The dragon nodded and continued to take notes and sketches. “So when you say “ship”...you mean like an airship?” Twilight asked, standing just in front of the Halcyon’s nose.

“Right again. Loads faster, though. She’s made for interstellar combat and exploration, to some degree.”

“So...this “ship”...fights?” Twilight asked, unsure of how something like that would work.

“Sure does,” Zhane replied proudly. “It needs to. It’s a strange and wonderful galaxy but it’s got its share of dangers too. Especially...” He paused, not wanting to scare the entire local population with tales of invading alien psychopaths. It wasn’t in the Alliance mandate to involve any new civilization in an Alliance conflict unless both sides agreed and a treaty was signed and all that nonsense. Besides, there was a good chance that the interference knocked out their navigation as well, effectively blinding them at least for the time being. “Know what, how ‘bout I just tell you a few things about myself and where I come from?” Zhane asked as he hopped out of the cockpit.

“Would you really?” Twilight asked eagerly.

“Sure! It’s not every day I make first contact.” Zhane answered with a smile as Twilight and her companion took a seat across from him. He took a small instrument roughly the size of a cellular phone out of his pocket and placed it on the ground between them. Twilight watched in awe as it lip up and filled the space between them with a holographic projection of a swirling mass of stars...a galaxy. It was remarkably similar to what Celestia had used to brief her on the Crystal Empire mission. As Zhane explained everything from his home planet to the current war with the Shivans, Twilight felt somewhat...insignificant. The universe was incomprehensibly huge and rather daunting at that. Of course, it was still fascinating at the same time. Twilight couldn’t help but smile as she watched the small virtual 3D video recordings that Zhane was able to provide.

“This just...I don’t even know what to say!” Twilight exclaimed. “I knew there was something out there but I never imagined there would be this much!”

“Yeah, it’s pretty wild out there,” Zhane agreed as a beeping sound emanated from the cockpit. “Well alright, looks like we’re finally up to operational power level. Now we can get outta here.”

As expected, a loud roar emanated from within the bog as soon as the words had left his mouth. Zhane cocked his head to the side, trying to determine what the loud stomping sound was as it grew louder and louder.

“What the Hell was that?” Zhane asked of a nervous Twilight.

“I’m not sure but I think it was…”

Also as expected of such an opportune moment of pure causality, an enormous dragon-like beast with four heads emerged from the swamp, crushing the trees and shaking the ground with every step.

“…a Hydra!” With that, Twilight ran for it as Spike clung to her back for dear life. Zhane saw them and was galvanized into action. He jumped into the Halcyon’s cockpit and started it up, grinning as the ship’s systems came to life. With only 14 percent power, his offensive options were limited but he was still far from helpless. He slowly eased the ship off the ground and flew off after the monster and its fleeing prey. He waited until Twilight wasn’t in his path and locked on to the monster.

“I have you now,” he muttered, squeezing the triggers. There was a pause as the computer displayed an error message citing a damaged weapons subsystem. “Are you kidding me?” Zhane demanded, squeezing the triggers again to no avail. “I guess we’ll just have to do this the old, old-fashioned way.”

“Not…this…again…” Twilight panted as she did her best to stay ahead of the rampaging Hydra. She desperately searched for an escape route and after finding none, resigned to simply run and hope for the best.

Crash!

Twilight yelped with fright as the Hydra emerged from the bog directly in her path. Having outflanked her, it stood between her and freedom and bared its teeth angrily as it slowly approached her. She backed up and backed up until she felt the ground give way behind her. A quick over-the-shoulder glance revealed a steep cliff and she stared up at the Hydra with terrified eyes.

“Twilight! Look!” Spike exclaimed, pointing up to their right. She looked up in amazement as the crashed ship, having recently un-crashed, hovered beside them. She looked up at the translucent green canopy just in time for Zhane to give her a thumbs-up. With that, the ship began to change. In a rapid series of transformations during which pieces of metal moved and folded, the ship suddenly stood on two legs like its pilot as if covered in a bulky, edgy suit of armor. It took a fighting stance in between Twilight, Spike, and the Hydra. Although smaller than the Hydra, it did not stop the ship from crushing the monster with a bone-crunching tackle. Twilight watched with a paralyzing combination of fascination and terror as they rolled and fought fang to armored limb. At first, it looked like the hydra had the upper hoof until the ship grabbed the monster by two of its long necks and threw it off. Without giving it the chance to recover, the ship stood up and grasped the creature between two large metal arms and flung it off the cliff. It sailed, roaring and flying over Twilight’s head as the ship rubbed its hands together as if to say “all done” before giving her another thumbs-up.

“Meh, he wasn’t so tough,” Zhane said nonchalantly over the ship’s intercom as the machine knelt in front of Twilight. “May I offer you a lift?” He asked, lowering one of the Halcyon’s open palms to the ground in front of the shocked pony. Twilight nodded and gingerly stepped aboard. As gently as he could, Zhane closed the hand partially around them and rose up into a low hover. “Alright, just tell me where to go.”