The horizon was curved. The sky was fading from dark blue to black. Below were the clouds, but they seemed as far away as they were on the ground. The velocity was incredible, it made the clouds seem to roll by and fall away because of it. It was flight above a land of clouds and the purest blue sky. False lines dance about in the sky of the world. This was a machine, more powerful than most ponies could imagine.

"This isn't real. It is another dream caused by the aliens' memories," Celestia said to herself as the dream's sky rolled past.

She continued to watch in curiosity as strange symbols danced across her vision. What they indicated she couldn't understand, but they seemed to be inside this machine with her. Even as her head turned the symbols stayed between her and the inside of the machine.

In the center of her vision was a circle with a horizontal line going through it. It was stationary unlike the lines on the left side of her vision. To her left there was a vertical line with what she believed to be numbers on it. A triangle with a number inside it was on the line. The numbers were moving down the line and the number in the triangle was changing.

Looking down at the panel in front of her she saw two glass panes with moving images underneath. One of the panels had images of the lines. The other had something that appeared to be a map.

"I don't recognize the map. This must be a memory of the alien's home," she thought. She continued to study the images.

Celestia looked at the symbols and attempted to discern their meaning. "The line on the left must be altitude. It is the only thing that seems to be changing quickly enough," she said as she smiled. As she did that she gained an increased awareness of her form. The thought crept through her, "This isn't my body. I am one of them, yet I feel normal." As she adjusted to her newfound awareness of her alien form she looked upon the machine around her.

"This is amazing. How could the aliens have this power?" she wondered, "This machine could fly higher and faster than myself or any pony ever had." "They couldn't fly on their own or use magic like Unicorns, yet they could create these things," her mind inquired, "Why have my Ponies not done this yet? We are still limited to little more than our natural abilities. Is it my fault?"

Suddenly, the symbols faded. Celestia looked to the panels; they were dark. The sensation of fear flooded her mind. She looked out the window.

"I can't go outside. I would be blow to pieces at this speed. Even if I wouldn't I would still asphyxiate at this altitude," she thought, challenged to escape this situation. Knowing she would die in seconds outside the failing machine, she had one choice, stay inside.

"If I can control this machine, I can land or at least go low and slow enough to escape," she planned, "Now time to look at the controls."

Her left hand was holding on to a metal stick attached to a button filled panel. Her right hand was on another panel, not holding a stick, but instead over a series of buttons and switches. A strange feeling of confidence overpowered her fear as she pressed a button on the right panel. Lights illuminated a series of gauges in front of her. Her left hand jiggles the stick. The gauges move in response.

"I can still fly. I will survive this," she spoke triumphantly.

The world went completely black. Her heart raced. Her breath tried to keep pace. "Where am I?" she asked the darkness.

She stared into the darkness, almost expecting an answer. She attempted to stand, but she couldn't. "Something is wrong with my arms," she thought, "Wait, I don't have arms. I'm a pony. It's only the spell affecting my mind."

Celestia changed tactic and attempted to use her magic to create light. She tried and nothing happened. "Celestia, this is a simple spell even a foal could cast it," she chastised herself.

She tried again and managed to create a dim light. "That was harder than it should have been," she thought as she looked around. Through the dim light she could discern that she was in her bedroom. Then she frantically looked at her body checking if it was still normal. "Four hooves, check. Two wings, check. Cutie mark, check. I can't see my mane from this position," she said, getting out of bed.

She walked to her mirror. Her eyes widened at what she saw. "My mane, it isn't shimmering anymore," her mind worried, "This means my magic completely stopped while I was asleep."

"Is my magic failing? Has the spell doomed me to a horrible death of having my mind slowly destroyed? If I die, will Equestria survive?" her mind screamed. She could no longer bear to look at the mirror. Turning her head to the floor, tears formed in her eyes.

"It is all my fault. I have cursed the fate of Equestria. Without myself it will take hundreds of Unicorns to move the sun. But the knowledge of the necessary spells have long since passed from knowledge of most Unicorns," she softly spoke to herself, watching her tears drop onto the floor in the dim light.

"But I had to do this. It is my sacrifice for Equestria. I did what I had to do to guarantee the safety of my ponies," she reassured herself. She questioned herself again, "No, I could have just of left the machine. It seemed dormant. I just did this to satisfy my own curiosity. I risked myself and my ponies in the process."

"It was only a week ago, but it feels like a century. We found another machine from the sky, but this one was different," she strained to remember.

*~*

Celestia stood with two of her Pegasus pony guards, Swiftshield and Goldenwall, in Ponyville's town hall. "My plan is proceeding well, but everything is not accounted for. Who has been making the machines, which have fallen from the sky into Equestria?" she pondered, "Was is Luna? Or was it Discord? No, it couldn't be. They have both been trapped for centuries. The creator of the machines must be a being I haven't met before. But why would they start sending them in the few decades before Nightmare's return?"

An unnatural object burned against the atmosphere, but it was not consumed. A small twitch of her tail and a thousand others set off the klaxon's within Celestia's mind. "A thousand niggles can not be wrong. Another of those strange machines has arrived. A powerful force has been sending them. I can't risk not investigating it," she planned.

"We have to go now. Guards come," she commanded.

"Princess, what about the celebration?" asked Swiftshield.

"Leave it. What we have to do is more important," she ordered before teleporting herself and her two guards.

With a flash they disappeared and reappeared in a meadow. The guards tried to assess the situation. Looking for landmarks or something to fix their position. The mountains in the distance hadn't moved much from how they were visible in Ponyville. "We seem to have not gone far from Ponyville," Goldenwall said, barely loud enough for Swiftshield to hear.

"Princess, why are we here?" Goldenwall asked.

"There," she said, before everyone disappeared again.

Then they were somewhere else. A quick survey told them they haven't traveled that far, but there was something nearby in the darkness. An unnatural cone had dug itself into the ground. A pony was standing next to it, distracted by the object she didn't notice the new arrivals.

Celestia bolted from her guards, galloping towards the object. "Princess, wait!" they yelled to her. She ignored them, for velocity was her only concern. They took flight after her.

Celestia stopped behind the Unicorn. "Rose Quartz, what do you know about this object?" she asked.

The startled Unicorn jumped in the air with a small squeak before turning around. She bowed before she spoke, "Your highness, my apologies. I just found this object. It fell from the sky. I think a Pegasus might of dropped it from a high cloud. I am not sure what the purpose of it is, but it has what seems to have a door."

The two guards had caught up with the Princess. "Princess, why did you leave us? We can't protect you if you run away," Goldenwall said, gasping for air.

"This," Celestia said gesturing to the object, "We have found more objects similar to this one. We don't know who has created them. Miss Quartz explain the rest to them. I need to investigate this object."

Rose spoke to the two confused stallions, "I am Rose Quartz of the Equestrian Intelligence Agency. Strange metal objects have been found in Equestria over the past few decades. Only a few days ago, a group of larger objects landed in Equestria. Unlike every other object found until then these ones seemed to be moving on their own. We have been observing the new objects from the distance."

Swiftshield interrupted her, "Wait if you didn't want to disturb the other objects, what were you doing to this one?"

Rose continued, "The others were found after they had landed. I personally saw this object descend. I had to make a judgement on how to interact with it. It appeared to be approaching the ground much faster than it would if it was going to land softly. I attempted to slow it with my magic, but as you can see I was not able to do so."

A sudden sound of metal tearing interrupted her explanation. Rose turned to see what was happening. Celestia had ripped the door section from the object and tossed it aside. Lighting her horn, she peered inside. "This one has passengers," she told the three onlookers. She unbuckled the nearest of the passengers. With great care she moved the body out of the metal and on to the nearby ground.

The other ponies gathered around it. "Is it some kind of Minotaur?" asked Goldenwall.

"No, it couldn't be. Judging from the boots, it is plantigrade. Additionally, it couldn't fit horns in that helmet," replied Swiftshield.

"Is it alive?" asked Rose.

The question went unanswered as Celestia went to remove the next body. She removed it and placed it next to the other one.

"They must be from a faraway part of the world. I have never read about beings that look exactly like this," Rose said to the others.

"How could they have flow that far? That doesn't look like a flying machine and they don't have wings," Swiftshield inquired.

"They could have used magic or a giant cannon," answered Goldenwall.

"No, that wouldn't work. That would require an impossibly giant cannon. Magic might be an explanation, but they would require magic more powerful than the strongest of Unicorns had ever performed to fly such a large object from across the ocean to here," Rose explained.

"We don't know what their species is. They could possess greater magic than ponies," added Swiftshield.

Rose gaped as a sudden realization arrived. Her voice shook as she whispered her conclusion to the others, "They didn't come from this world. If they had existed here we would have known about beings with such powers earlier. The complete lack of evidence of the existence of an entire race of intelligent beings with this level of abilities cannot be explained any other way."

Celestia removed the final body placing it in a row. "This is the last of our guests. I want you to keep watch while I investigate them," she ordered.

The other ponies went to set a perimeter around the crash site. Celestia turned to the three bodies. "May you tell me your secrets," she whispered to herself. She cast a simple spell to determine if they were still alive.

The spell failed to determine anything. She tried again with a more complex spell.

Finally results appeared to her. Two of the beings were probably dead. One appeared to be almost so. But it was beyond her ability to heal injuries to an unknown being.

"I know of a spell that might allow me to retrieve more information from them. But is it worth the risk?" she thought, "I must try anything. Whatever these beings are, they have powers that seem to exceed any known being excepting the great powers of the world. If they are a race instead of unique beings, they could destroy Equestria."

Her mind decided, she set on her course. She prepared to cast one of her greatest spells. "This spell could kill me. It would certainly destroy the mind of a lesser pony. If I shall fail, Luna please forgive me," she spoke silently,

She cast the spell. Her mind went blank. For her a moment and a century passed simultaneously. "The spell worked," she remarked triumphantly. It was rare for a pony who could move the sun to cast spells that challenge her.

Celestia mentally touched the memories. Alien sensations flashed before her mind. "Rose's hypothesis was correct, the beings were from another world," she concluded.

"How much time had passed?" she asked the dark sky. She probed the sky with her magic. "The Nightmare is still in control, but there is still time for Twilight," she thought, "I should organize things here while I wait for her to complete her duty."

*~*

"That was how I started it. Afterwards I began to search the memories further, but I didn't know what would happen," her dark thoughts stirred, "I started to forget things. I did not notice this myself. Captain—"

"I can't remember his name," she cried as she strained to remember.

"I have been making preparations for Equestria while I still am able," she thought, "Just yesterday I started the greatest of these."

*~*

Celestia was standing alone in windowless room deep within the palace. The stone room was unadorned, only a few candles provided dim and flickering light.

"Everything is perfect," she said as she stepped into the center of the room. "If this works I can slow the damage to my mind and get the answers I need," she thought as she sat on the cold stone.

She closed her eyes, fixated the alien in her mind and cast the spell.

She opened her eyes. The world had changed. The room was gone. In its place was the horizon and the cool night of a calm sea.

She inhaled the salty air and looked down. The simple raft she sat upon had another passenger. The comatose alien was sprawled on the raft in some kind of light blue uniform.

Celestia smiled. "You and I must not be that dissimilar, even here you see yourself at the service of others," she spoke softly to the unconscious passenger.

"Let us get to work then," she said to herself. She looked to the sky.

The sky of this place had more stars than were visible in the sky of Equestria. Celestia concentrated on the sky and a second set of stars appeared. The new stars were distinguishable from the old by their color. The old were white and the new yellow.

Celestia continued to concentrate on the stars. The stars moved throughout the sky. Sometimes a yellow star would turn white. Sometimes all the stars moved slightly.

"I am almost finished. The points are in their places. I just need to prepare the failsafe spell," she spoke to the sky. SHe concentrated and it was done.

"Goodbye, next time you should be able to speak back," she said to the passenger.

Celestia opened her eyes. She was back in the palace. "Now for the second phase of the spell," she thought as she rose from he floor.

She stepped back from where she was sitting. She gripped a metal object from the floor with her magic. She held it before her. It was a simple knife. She removed it from its sheath. After taking a moment to observe the candlelight's flicker reflect on its blade, she lifted her left foreleg. "It's now or never," she mumbled.

She drove the knife against her leg. Wincing she dropped the knife and cast the next spell.

A gust blew out the candles. The room fell dark. "I need to cast the final spell," she whispered into the darkness. This final spell didn't seem to have any effect, but she knew it had succeeded.

She created a small light with her magic. A few motes floated in the center of the room. "It worked," she said, unable to stop the smile from coming to her face.

"I hope you don't panic too much from being an Earth pony, Captain Smith," she said to the empty room.

*~*

"The spell seems to have worked and slowed the progression of the chaos within my mind. However I cannot let this distract me from the problem," Celestia thought.

She looked back to her room's mirror. "I just need to recast the spell to connect myself to the sun," she said.

The spell was complex, but it was her most well practiced. A sudden flash and her pink mane dissolved into the flowing one she was known for.

*~*

Celestia had concluded her court early that day. She went to the room she had put the comatose pony. "He should be awakening soon, if my estimate is correct," she thought standing over him.

She cast a diagnostic spell on him. "You seem fine, but you won't awaken. The problem must not be detectable with this spell," she concluded, "I will wait a little while longer."

An eighth of a day passed. Celestia was looking out the room's window. "Had I made a mistake with the spell? It is possible, this was the first time something like this has been attempted," she thought as she watched the sky, "Could the alien mind be incompatible with a pony mind? No, that does not seem to be true as I could interact with his memories."

Suddenly, Celestia heard a scream from across the room. She turned around and saw the pony had awakened. "You have finally awakened," she said in the alien tongue.

Author's Note

This chapter took longer to get ready than I had planned. Thank you for reading this far.