The refugees

Chapters

Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Prologue

Chapter 2

The colony on Zerra was as humble and bland as the planet was. The hub of activity was the spaceport, which held a variety of transport ships and trading posts. There were very few merchants who wanted to come out to the corner of known space for a few bits, but they were there nonetheless. At any time in the day one could find ponies hawking wares that had been shipped in from across the cosmos, produce to superstitious trinkets. Beyond the bazaar was the actual landing strip, which was much more clustered. Zerra was primarily a rocky world, and the ores were plentiful; so the Stoneworkers came in droves to gather the plunder, eager to forge the raw materials into much needed metals.

To the south, within easy walking distance of the port was the housing complex, a great maze of buildings that hunched together like travelers against the cold. The average height was a mere twenty stories, paltry compared to the spires of the more populated colonies. Built from inexpensive Quik-steel, it had no remarkable features to speak of. To make matters worse, Zerra was riddled with fault lines, and quakes happened often. The apartments were typically brittle, and most nights the streets would be packed with the suddenly homeless. You got what you paid for, of course.

To the east of this was the recreational zone; a rectangle half the size of the complex inlaid with theatres, arcades, and a park with a single tree. This was not to be mistaken for a small thing, for trees were a rarity in colonies and those on Zerra were immeasurably proud to have one, even if it by accident. No one had ever looked upon their planet and decided it needed any form of fauna. The theatres were lightly used, power being as fickle as their houses, and the arcade had a few games that grew stale quickly.

To the south of the houses was the Terraformer, a behemoth of a machine twice again the size of the complex. Most of what had been embedded beneath the crust, but what was visible still dwarfed everything else on the surface. It’s great vents whined incessantly, pumping breathable air outwards. Pumps deeper inside the framework purified water, filling the basin for distribution. There was a constant line at the dispenser, for Zerra was uncomfortably close to the sun and the temperatures were usually between sweltering and unbearable. Unfortunately for the colony, they had been given an old generation of Terraformer. So the planet remained a desert of bleached grey stone, with thin air and an unsightly and loud metal blemish.

Lastly there was the mines, a few days travel westwards by hoof. There was a set of spartan barracks there, housing both miners and soldiers, situated near a gaping natural chasm. Lifts moved in and out of the hole, carrying ponies and ores. Here was where Zerra earned it’s livelihood, scraping precious minerals out of the depths. Silver, gold, copper, bronze, adamantium, all but the rarest were found within. And the gemstones were as common as dirt, if near lethally dangerous. Almost half the planet seemed to be a humongous geode, awe inspiring chambers of crystals covered by a thin crust. Due to the tunnel like formations these caves took, some ponies took to praising an imaginary crystal making serpent for a good days harvest. This earned the colonists the mocking nickname ‘Wormers.’

This was the world Chalcedony had awoken to every day for as long as her memory would go. She was a comparatively small unicorn, with light blue coat and a violet-white striped mane, and her job was to fix whatever may go wrong in the various machines. A task befitting her wrench and bolt Mark. She spent most of her time flitting to and fro, trying to keep a lid on the problems which seemed to never end.

The day started like any other, a short meal of cheese tasting rations and she was off, her pad already buzzing with alerts. “Arcade’s shorted out. Again,” she read off, using her magic to float the sliver of crystal. “Three lifts have been stalling, the plumbing in section five has malfunctioned, and the aquifer is... leaking waste? Ew.”

As she walked the crowds shifted away, aware of her inattentiveness. A fair amount of the populace had bruises to show off, from when Chalcedony had accidentally kicked them. The mare would immediately apologize, of course, but the lesson had yet to be learned.

“You’d think they would find a few more repair ponies. Or give me a scooter. I can’t travel that fast!” she bemoaned to nopony in particular. She was close enough to district five though. That would be easy.

Chalcedony ducked, the hose whipping over her head. The plumbing malfunction had turned out to be a huge backlog of water, stopped by somepony’s unmentionables. When she had tried to loosen the pressure, the stoppage had been removed rather forcefully, and now the water was propelling a particularly ponicidal pipe. The resident, a bulky earth stallion with every appearance of being the studliest of studs, was now wearing frilly, polka dotted undergarments and caught between shock and embarrassment.

“I really am very sorry about this,” Chalcedony said, trying to pin the frisky pipe with her magic. “I hadn’t expected the problem to be flushed panties. I actually have a plan for that, you see, and- hey!” The pipe had twisted round and was now gushing water into her face. The stallion slowly backed out of the door, shutting it behind him. He was going to ignore the curses and crashing emanating from his bathroom, even if it did sound like Tartarus had come to visit.

Chalcedony was back on the streets shortly, if somewhat damper.

“You see the new soldiers they sent in?” said a young colt, catching her ear as she passed. “They got guns! Honest to earth guns!”

“Peh. Guns were old when I was your age, Sil’. What I want to know is why they sent in a bunch of newbies.” The mare had wandered over to the conversation, having heard nothing before of new arrivals. A young colt, a stallion she guessed to be his father, and an elderly pony were gathered round a table, sipping from a pitcher of water. “I’ve heard tell that the Alliance is rounding up her colonies.”

The oldest one laughed, a low wheezing noise. His lungs had suffered in the mines. “Those weren’t no Alliance ships ya ninny. They had the standing pony on their tails.” The others stared blankly. “It’s the mark of the Earthen March. Don’t you lot read?”

“Is that better or worse?” asked the stallion.

“Depends. The March does like to make a presence in colonies of earth ponies, so they’s might just be showing off. Of course, they also like metals, more’n the rest of em’.” The elder shrugged, “I’d havta see their commander for myself, to get a good head on what they’re about.”

“But, but they had guns!” the colt said, put out by the talk of politics.

Chalcedony had already set away, towards the spaceport. Her duties could wait a few hours, she rarely had a chance to see some new technology. Or, well, not new, really. New to her at least. Almost archaic by the rest of the universes standards. But the colt had the right of it; guns! The finest example of pony ingenuity. She trotted happily to the port, squeezing past the crowd that had gathered.

Three new ships had indeed arrived, lumbering things that looked their age beneath the polish. Little more than a square with fifty hoof sides, with a trio of conical engines at the back and a great deal of deployable wings folded into the metal. On the sides was a triangle of brown encasing a black pony, reared on his hindlegs. Sixty ponies were marching off the port, flags bearing the standing pony hanging lifeless. Each had a long rifle made of simple iron on their backs. Chalcedony followed after them, eager to get her hooves on a gun.

They came to a halt by the road leading to the mines, forming neat rows of five. Ponies began to gather nearby, muttering to themselves. Seeing her chance, Chalcedony walked out of the crowd with a smile and a wave.

“Hi the-”

Suddenly there were a dozen guns trained on her, the earth ponies wielding them in saddle carriers. Her smile fell with a gulp. The crowd moved back, barely breathing.

“Explain yourself,” commanded a lemon coloured pony. His gun in particular seemed trained on her head.

“I just... wanted to say hi...” she was shaking now, and her hoof was still raised in greeting. She dared not move it.

“We were told this was an earth colony. What is a unicorn doing here?”

“I, I live here?”

“Identification.”

She didn’t move for a moment, and the pony gestured her over, lowering his gun. It was still pointed at her, and what she assumed was the trigger still close to his mouth. Chalcedony went to him on shaky hooves, levitating her crystal pad towards him. This made him glare at her, as though the act insulted him, and she drew it back, offering it with her hoof instead. He gave it a cursory glance and tossed it back, snorting.

“Very well. But do not get in our way again.” With that, he called a few short orders to the soldiers and they holstered their weapons. Chalcedony scampered back to the safety of the crowd, scared and confused. But even they, who she had spent many years with, regarded her with a new air of suspicion. Some seemed to be just noticing the horn on her head for the first time. And she suddenly noticed that she was the only non earth pony.

Feeling oppressed by their stares, she ran back to her home, locking the door behind her. The aquifer could fix itself; she’d had enough to deal with today. She patted a pile of metal in the corner and it came to life, a small robot made of tentacle like arms and a small sphere for it’s center. A yellow eye flickered on and stared at her with something like curiosity.

“You don’t hate me, do you Sweeper?” The robot didn’t respond, but it’s slow bobbing in the air seemed like a shake of the head. “ I don’t understand. I just wanted to say hi, maybe see their guns. They’re going to be here awhile, they should get a nice welcome just like anypony else!” Chalcedony sniffed, curling up on the floor, dragging her blanket over her. “He called me a unicorn like it was a disease, or something. There’s nothing wrong with having a horn, is there?” Sweeper brushed a few limbs over it’s mistresses face. It was hard to tell if this was a sign of sentience, or just a cleaning droid performing it’s functions.

“I bet,” she said, voice picking up, “that he just never saw a unicorn before. I was surprised the first time I saw a pegasus. Only I didn’t have a gun. Or scare them quite like that.” The mare thought for a moment, then rose with newfound determination. “I’ll just have to show him I’m not a bad pony! He won’t be so rude now that he knows I’m a colonist. I just have to introduce myself properly, and then we can get along just fine, and he’ll let me look at his guns!”

Satisfied with her plan, she set out at once to follow it through. Then yawned deeply, the long night previous catching up to her. “I’ll meet him tomorrow,” she said with a nod, and marched smartly back to her bed. Sweeper just looked about the room and set to work, trying to clean without the tools it had been designed with. Casualties of rebuilding the poor thing, Chalcedony had said.

The next week passed, and the plan remained just that. Her jobs rose with the newcomers, trying to accommodate them in the already tight water rationing. Her excuse for the first few days was that adjusting a low grade Terraformer was tough work. Later, even she had to admit that the soldiers were scaring her. They seemed to lurk on every street, eyeing most ponies with a combination of superiority and passive suspicion. Their open glares and derisive snorts were specially reserved for her, it seemed. And it didn’t help that the mood seemed to grow on the colonists. There were a lot of ponies on Zerra though, and she thought she could ignore the staring eyes; then one day a little foal saw her walking towards him and hastily crossed to the other side.

Chalcedony’s home calls grew in rarity as the days passed. The peak of this epidemic, which she hoped was separate from the others, was when she was called back to the district five. The stallion whom she had helped not four days ago had recreated the problem. From the moment he answered the door with cautious distance, her hope dwindled.

As she was fishing the blockage from the pipes again, this time using the proper procedure for stuck clothing, she tried to joke about him flushing his wife’s underwear twice. He frowned at her, and she forced a smile. Then, with a gurgle, the pipe spewed water, promising a repeat of previous antics. The problem this time was a rock, and Chalcedony’s procedure didn’t apply.

“Sorry!” she shouted over the rushing water, “I thought it was the underwear again. I’m usually a lot better at this!”

“Much better than us earth ponies, right?” the stallion said lowly. Chalcedony blinked, not sure if she heard that correctly, and flashed him a pleading grin.

“Just give me a moment, I’ll get this fixed in a-”

“How ‘bout you just leave.”

The way he said it, she knew it was not a question. Feeling unwelcome, she made a last muttered apology and retreated, leaving the room to be flooded. The stallion’s eyes followed her until she closed the door, and seemed to hover over her shoulder as she trotted dejectedly from the apartment. When she came into the streets, the noise near her seemed to dim. Looking up, she found that everypony nearby was staring at her. What distressed her more than that was that she found herself expecting the behavior.

Walking down the street, Chalcedony wilted under the eyes. Desperate after the encounter with toilet-pony, she tried to strike up a conversation with the ponies she knew; Jitters, who needed her help monthly to fix up his scooter, Applewood who usually bugged her for a spare water ticket. Ponies she had previously been friendly with gave her the cold shoulder. Some growled ‘unicorn’ like a curse behind her back. Finally she fled further away from the small civilization.

She was walking down a deserted side path by the spaceport when the world heaved. Chalcedony yelped and cowered, fearing a quake. Then the first missiles shrieked from above, blasting into some of the docked ships. With a cry of crashing metal they burst into plumes of fire. Still more fell, some missing entirely and creating bursts of flame in the rocky land. Others hit their marks; a thing shaped like a bathtub hurtled down, ripping through the side of an apartment. It settled there for a moment, then exploded with a wave of howling wind. The building folded in on itself, the upper half crushing the lower. Chalcedony was blown backwards by the force of it, and could only watch from her prone position as the devastation continued. The screams of ponies were almost inaudible.

A massive ship floated down beneath the cloud layer, a great sky blue oval with many engines that swiveled to maneuver it. Out of it’s sides flew more missiles, and it’s belly opened to release a flood of small, winged figures. Following the first were dozens of other ships, sleeker, smaller ovals with eagle wings on their sides. These rained bolts of energy and metal down on the scattering crowds.

Frightened, Chalcedony scrambled to her hooves and ran, far away from the slaughter. She had to get help, find some of the patrolling guards, raise the alarm, something! She dodged burning debris from the dead ships and the fleeing merchants, trying to find the newly arrived soldiers. Surely they would be near their ships, ready to repel the attack.

Not looking where she ran, the mare crashed into another pony, sending both to the ground. The other, a hefty earth pony, cursed at her and wobbled to his feet, only to be sent crashing down once more; this time by some new creature. It’s hindquarters had brown fur and paws, with a feline tail. A pair of eagle wings spread from it’s shoulders, and the upper half was similarly eagle like. It’s talons pinned the fat pony to the ground. He wailed, begging for his life with coins. The creature opened his throat with a single talon and left him to die. Then it turned on Chalcedony.

She too began to beg with it, and it only laughed. “Weakling ponies, you do not even fight!” it said, it’s voice harsh as an eagle’s cry. Face to face, Chalcedony could guess that it was female, with stripes of red paint masking her features. She backed up as the creature advanced with a wicked grin. She crouched, and Chalcedony closed her eyes. A bang, and hot liquid spattering on her coat. Opening one eye, she saw that the creature now had a bleeding hole through her chest. She tottered and fell, blood pooling beneath her.

“Are you able to run citizen?” asked a stallion, gun still raised. Chalcedony broke from her stupor to see it was the same yellow coated soldier as before. He had not recognized her, looking into the sky to watch the spreading, winged figures.

“Y-yeah.”

“Then run. The colony is lost, and we need to save as many as we can.” He lifted a forehoof and spoke into a circle of crystal, “Fall back, evac plan alpha. All units retreat.” He glanced about the ruin of the spaceport and started towards the rear, ordering Chalcedony to follow. Too shocked to refuse, she followed as he lead them to the rear of the port.

Standard procedure for every spaceport was to build a set of escape pods, in case of emergencies. The information was generally forgotten by the inhabitants of Zerra, thus this strip was barren.

The stallion stopped at the edge of the concrete, flashing his anklet at an embedded sensor. It lit up, and the stone peeled back, letting a sphere rise up. It was big enough to hold ten ponies, and was the absolute minimum requirements for a space faring craft. He jumped in first, and turning to let her in, finally noticed whom he had rescued. His face hardened, and Chalcedony feared he would not let her on. Then he growled and moved aside.

Within was an array of typical devices for space travel, along with seating for seven ponies. There was a single window at the back, through which Chalcedony watched the invaders destroy her home. “What about the others?” she asked weakly.

“They evacuate, or they die,” said the stallion. He had unstrapped his gun, and was setting up the launch. “The Sky-lords aren’t the type for torture. Likely those left behind will be hunted to the last.”

“The Sky-lords?”

“Not your friends, unicorn,” he growled.

The computer popped up suddenly, announcing that they could depart when ready. Chalcedony stopped him as he was about to send them off, asking if they should wait. Surely there were others who could be saved?

“Soldiers of the Earthen March would not leave their fellows to die if there was a chance to save them. Do not foul their name with such doubts.”

Chalcedony sat back, hanging her head in defeat, for the stallion would not speak to her again. Tears were welling in her eyes as the engines ignited, but she couldn’t help but watch Zerra as they were whisked away. The pod shuddered and lurched into the air, breaking through the atmosphere in less than a minute. Other streaks of silver told of the few who had escaped besides them, barely a fraction of the former colony. Chalcedony looked sadly on the only world she had ever known. Smoke and fire were visible even from space, a testament to the ruthless Sky-lords. The yellow stallion huffed, refusing to witness the destruction. But both were equally afraid, for adventure had come upon them; and the roads were more treacherous than ever before.

Chapter 3

It had been hours since Chalcedony and the soldier stallion fled from Zerra. The mood was too somber for conversation, so the two of them sat in silence. The stallion sat near the door, ramrod straight and impassive. Chalcedony watched the stars from the sole window, waiting to cry for her lost home. Then she saw a Sky-lord ship speeding towards them.

“Uh... sir? There’s... not friendlies coming for us,” she said. The stallion moved to the window, careful not to touch her, and looked.

“This ship has no weapons and no protection,” he stated evenly. “Your employers played it cheap, and now we’re going to die for it, unicorn.” Turning round, he took his seat again and removed the gun from his back, polishing it with an oily cloth. “The Sky-lords never give up a hunt.”

Eyes wide, Chalcedony could only watch as the ship flew closer. It took only thirty minutes to close the distance, though it felt like long hours had passed. It’s front flashed red, the same colored energy beam hitting an instant later. The whole pod shook, every screen showing alerts and errors. She flinched back with a scared mewl, waiting for the vacuum of the void to devour her, or the craft to burst.

Nothing happened, and she looked again. The Sky-lord had flown away, out of sight, leaving them to die in their damaged pod. Chalcedony began to smile, until the stallion reminded her that the navigation had been taken out. They had been spared quick destruction for days of hopeless drifting.

Taking a look at the monitors, she smiled anyways. The Zerra escape pods were indeed low budget and overall faulty things, but that was because they relied on very simple models. Except for a few points, like water levels and purity, the programming behind this ship was very similar to that of the Terraformer she had worked on for years.

Chalcedony ignored the stallions stare and peeled back one of the circuit covers, revealing mess of wires that put her bedmane to shame. Horn glowing gray, she reached inside with feelers of magic, following streams of energy until they lead her to the navigation system. Now came the tricky part; the shot had damaged some of the cords, severing the connection. But, with the right parts...

“Give me your gun,” Chalcedony said, not looking away from the circuitry. The stallion didn’t even move, just looked at her like she’d gone mad. When nothing came to her, she looked over a shoulder at him. “Your gun. I need it to fix the navigation.”

“Why should I trust you with a weapon?” he asked. “For all I know, you could be rigging the ship to explode.”

Chalcedony blinked. “By the stars, why would I do that?! I’m on the ship too! Five seconds ago you were waiting to die, just let me try to save us?” She gave him her best ‘trust me’ face and a winning smile. He stood and placed his gun reverently on the ground, watching her eyes all the while.

And then she systematically pulled it apart. He protested, and she didn’t like it either. She would have been thrilled to get such an up close look at historic technolog; but today was no time for admiration. She piled the useless pieces by the side, working until she had a fair collection of springs and slim metals. These she floated into the wiring, coating them with a protective enchantment that matched the wire covering.

It took ten minutes or so for Chalcedony to finish, but the screens remained frozen in error. She rolled her eyes and gave the panel a good buck, jolting it back to perfection. Unable to help a little gloating, she brought up the navigation system with a few proud clicks. And froze, one hoof in the air.

“Where are we going, again?” The stallion pushed her aside and tapped in the coordinates. The craft gave a shudder as it readjusted, and the engine made an unpleasant stutter as it accelerated.

When the massive ship came into sight, Chalcedony had moved on to attempting small talk, to no avail. She stopped mid-sentence, spotting it out the window. It was bigger than the main Sky-lord ship that had attacked Zerra, almost triple in size. The main hulk was composed of four blimp shapes that widened and fused toward the back until they were a single square. Each blimp was connected by elegant looking space-walk arches, enclosed in painted glass to keep the oxygen in. The engines were inlaid in the rear square, a circle at each corner with the base of cones jutting out. On it’s side, crudely painted on was the standing pony insignia of the Earthen March.

As they closed in, the stallion’s crystal anklet buzzed. There was a brief, muttered conversation with it. Then a pair of small disk-shaped ships flew out of the lower left blimp and took a spot at both sides of the craft, easing it’s approach with magnets.

The ponies at the docking station had heard about the attack on Zerra, and were already in position to receive the escapees. As the tiny pod drifted into the airlock, a metallic claw reached out of the floor and held it in place so the artificial gravity could be turned on. The outer doors closed behind them, and oxygen flooded the chamber with a loud hiss. Ponies in cautionary hazard suits gathered on the extending platform, waiting for the passengers to exit and be taken to the detox room.

Thus it was no small surprise when the door opened not towards them, but on the bottom. A mare, a stallion, and a collection of gears falling out, one with brief yelp. The fall was only a few feet, luckily, and both seemed unhurt. They were retrieved with a ladder, the parts collected and sent elsewhere, and the procedure went on like nothing had happened. Chalcedony was given an extra dose of bacteria killing fumes though. Three more than the stallion, actually. And then was told to sit on a bench until somepony came to get her.

“Sweeper!” she exclaimed after a few minutes sitting idle. “I left Sweeper!” Chalcedony moaned, ears going limp in despair. Sweeper had been her constant companion for years, never complaining, and only sometimes breaking. Even if he was just a poorly repaired bot from some shady trader, it deserved better than being buried under Quik-steel.

The yellow stallion interrupted her thoughts, staring down his muzzle at her. Without a word he started away, and Chalcedony decided to follow rather than be lost. They left the arrival station, meeting a pair of earth ponies at a double door. The stallion showed them a paper and they opened the door with a whirr. Beyond was a foyer, large enough to hold hundreds of ponies, shaped as a giant cube. At every corner was a similar pair of doors, and in the center floated a sign post with long arrows pointing at each. They had just left the ‘docking bay’.

What caught Chalcedony’s attention was the blatant disregard for gravity being shown. Ponies walked on every side of the cube, looking either upside down or sideways to her.

She would have stared all day, trying to guess how they managed such a thing (magnets taped to everypony’s hooves? A rotating gravitron? Maybe they were all secretly pegasi) but yellow pony cleared his throat and motioned her onwards. They crossed down their floor, and coming to a wall, simply walked up it as though it was natural. Chalcedony had a brief moment of vertigo, but no other change.

They continued to the ‘military wing’, although the name seemed scratched on compared to others. Here yellow tried to flash the paper again, but the guards shook their heads. From here on out they would need an escort, they were told, and one of the guards followed next to yellow. They kept walking, both earth ponies knowing the direction despite the many intersections. They talked to each other, but never acknowledged the unicorn behind them.

“You’re in for it rough, Vanilla,” said the escorter. “The Loo’ himself was calling the shots.”

Neither noticed Chalcedony’s smile, having learned her rescuer’s name at last. “I’ve served well for the last seven years. Besides which, I followed my orders as best I could, under the circumstances. Just came on some... collateral damage.” Vanilla jerked his head backwards. Chalcedony looked back too, worried that some eagle-hybrid had followed them.

The other laughed, and the talk went on to small things that Chalcedony could not keep interest in. She took to inspecting the ship around her, trying to match it to her knowledge of mechanics. The pieces she recognized were outweighed by the amount of which she had no clue. It didn’t help that all the important, interesting circuitry was hidden behind shimmering greyish walls.

Then she ran head-first into one of the stallions in front. She backed up, apology forming on her lips, but the guard beat her to it. “Keep your filth away from us, unicorn,” he growled, and Chalcedony took a half step back, watching the gun holstered on his back. They held that for a few seconds before the guard eased, waving them through the door, making a point to glare at Chalcedony until it closed behind them.

Now they were in a chamber that looked rather like a judges room. Rows of seats lined either side of a bare isle, which lead to a raised podium. At this sat three earth ponies, the two on the side wrinkled with age and the center hardened with experience. Before these, and after the seats, were two tables. Vanilla waited at the entrance, standing at attention, until the center pony called his name.

Chalcedony watched him, puzzled by the purpose of the room, until the same pony called her over by the suddenly common title of ‘the unicorn’. She went down the aisle behind Vanilla, and took a seat next to him at one of the front tables.

The pony on the left rose, trying to look wise with his powdered wig. “Sergeant Vanilla Drops of the fifteenth Earthen regiment, you are called to the tribunal today to speak your case for the incident on Zerra.” Here he looked down, shuffling a stack of papers. “As a sworn member of the Earthen March, you are required to participate to any and all questions, as stated in lines five through eight of the oath. Your prisoner must also answer honestly, as per line one hundred-oh-five of the-”

“We understand the rules, Captain Rubidium,” said the center pony. “Now, unless there is some aspect of the oath or associated codes that you feel is vital, I would like-”

“I’m not a prisoner...”

Everypony stared at Chalcedony, who slammed a hoof into her snout too late. She smiled sheepishly around her hoof and slid lower in her seat, trying to hide beneath the table. Vanilla followed her example for some reason, dropping his head, perfect posture drooping.

“If there are no more interruptions,” said the right pony, “I believe the defendant should hear the charges. You are hereby charged with dereliction of duty, abandonment of your soldiers, cowardice in the face of danger, and failure to protect the colony of Zerra. How do you plead?”

“I did not abandon my men!” he cried. Lowering his volume, he continued “We were overwhelmed and outgunned. I ordered an alpha evac, but was too far away to ensure they followed through.”

“Are there any to confirm this?” asked Rubidium. Chalcedony caught just a hint of smugness in his tone and bristled.

“They should be arriving shortly, if not before me.”

“And yet, you two are the only ones to make it here,” the right pony said.

Frowning, Vanilla turned to the center pony, who nodded. “I’m afraid the other escape pods were destroyed by enemy ships. Sky-lords do not give up a hunt. You know that, sergeant.”

“AS there are no others to confirm your story,” Rubidium went on. “We must take you on the undeniable evidence before us; you arriving here with a disassembled weapon and a unicorn. A mare, no less. I know a week is a long time on such a desolate planet, Vanilla Drops, but to stoop so low?” As he was saying this, a pony trotted down the aisle and deposited a bundle on the table before Vanilla. Opening it revealed a mess of metal that was once a gun.

Center pony breathed deeply before waving away the other judges. “You have made your say, Rubidium, Palladium. A case of minor military transgression is beneath ponies of your prestige.” The two exchanged a glance before agreeing, leaving their stands with heads held high. When the door closed behind them, he thumped a hoof against the wood.

“You’ve gotten yourself in a tight spot, Vanilla. The best I can do is try and sway them from the harsher punishments.” Seeing Vanilla’s look, he waved a hoof. “They were speaking of treason before you came in.”

Vanilla went pale. Chalcedony, feeling braver with the two elderly ponies gone, spoke up. “He’s not a traitor! I was there, he saved my life!”

Her tablemate dropped his head on to the table with a ‘thunk’. The center pony’s eyes narrowed at her. She swallowed. “T-there was a lot... the Sky-lords...”

“Captain Iron, I swear to you if I could have saved some I would have,” Vanilla said, raising his head enough to look the captain in the eyes. “There was no warning, no time to evacuate the citizens.”

“I know Vanilla. And I know your loyalty. The March is lucky to have you.”

Before they could continue, a somewhat tinny voice intruded throughout the room. “It has come to my attention that a certain somepony broke some very important rules. And it is my decision that this pony should serve as an example for his more faithful comrades. Iron, if you would be so kind as to bring this pony to my offices. I’m sure we can come to an agreement.” And the intercom clicked off without waiting for a reply.

Iron bowed his head, “I’m coming with you Vanilla. With any luck, I might convince the general to go easy. What that means with him, though...”

With that both soldiers stood and left the room together, leaving a confused Chalcedony sitting at the table. The intercom buzzed on again, “Oh, and somepony give the prisoner appropriate rooming. I’ll deal with her later.” A guard pointed at one of the doors and Chalcedony went through, following her escort into the common wing. They went down an elevator, and out into a typical prison, unpleasantly damp despite the filtration system. She was motioned into a cell, and the door locked behind her.

On the opposite side, in a cell just a bit further down than hers, was another pony. He seemed to be shaking in place, and had his back turned to her. Chalcedony said hello, and the pony spun suddenly, jamming his face against the bars. From the wild, pupil-less stare and nervous energy she guessed he wasn’t much for conversation. So she climbed into the narrow bed and waited, quickly becoming bored.

When Vanilla came to fetch her from her cell, she assumed it was not going to end well for her. But they were on a ship full of military ponies, and when the sergeant asked her to follow, there was little choice. So they went, out of the prison bay and through the bedding quarters, passed a lounge area that was bigger than the entire prison. Chalcedony was charting the entire route in her head, more of an nervous distraction than active effort. There wasn’t much she would be able to do with it, unless she liv... was around long enough to act as a tour guide. Along the way she made several attempts to ask what had happened between him and the general, but he ignored each one.

They left the common wing entirely, and Vanilla took them to the public wing. Almost immediately they turned, and Chalcedony found herself in a mess hall. The tables and seats were rough wooden things, bolted to the floor with unseemly workponyship. In one corner was a collection of richly padded cushions, and there the floor was much cleaner. Only a single elderly pony ate there, wearing more jewelry than there were red hairs left in her mane. The far wall was laced with serving areas, pans of edibles under pseudo-sunlight bulbs. Very few ponies were in the hall then, it being well after standard breakfast time.

Vanilla lead her to a empty table and left. She looked around, confused as to why she had been brought here. Vanilla, coming back with two laden trays, saw her standing exactly where he left her, investigating the room and trying not to look it. He sighed and pushed her towards the seat, dropping one tray in front of her. It had bread and sprouts, and a cup of peach colored liquid without any discernible smell. Chalcedony stared at him blankly.

“If the rations are not to your liking, I can assure you there is nothing else,” he said, taking the seat across.

The unicorn stared at him for a moment longer before sniffing her food, and finding it satisfactory, lifted a fork with her magic. Vanilla swiftly kicked her hind leg. She gave him a hurt look, but got the message and ate like an earth pony; using her hooves to manipulate the utensils. The food tasted fresh and wholesome, a stark contrast to what she had eaten before.

When they were finished, Chalcedony said “Better than anything I had on Zerra,” with a hopeful smile.

“That’s because unicorns can’t grow like earthens can.”

“But, I was the only unicorn there. They never let me near the rations.”

Vanilla didn’t respond to that, taking the trays back to the serving area. Chalcedony slumped in her chair until he coughed behind her, gesturing towards the door. This time she wanted to see where Vanilla took her and almost walked next to him. Almost. She had managed it for a few seconds before he glared her backwards. They went back into the common wing, passed the lounge and the bedding quarters, and right back into the prison bay.

When the sergeant had left, she groaned. “Cells,” she announced to the jittery pony down the hall, “are boring.” The other prisoner’s high pitched laugh startled her, and the way he stared at her with those eyes was worse. Chalcedony slowly retreated to the far corner of her cell, resolving to stay away from jittery.

Vanilla visited her a few hours later. Without a word, he opened the door and jammed a bright yellow crystal anklet onto her right foreleg. With a few button pushes it tightened on Chalcedony’s leg. “You’re free to wander, but don’t do anything stupid. The scryer will be keeping track of you,” he explained and left. Chalcedony stared at the new accessory, watching a pair of lights blink continuously.

She left the cells and poked around the common wing, finding the lounge area quickly. Lush pillows were positioned in neat stacks, and a long couch was in place in front of each of the ten wall-consuming screens adorning the room. Nopony was inside, so Chalcedony sat on a couch, playing with the controls on the armrest.

“-on the next episode of ‘My Husband is an Alien Brain Parasite.” The screen suddenly showed a picture of a mare with a beehive mane cut and a greenish thing wiggling out of her ear. They seemed to be in a debate, or as much as one that could be managed. The mare was yelling at the thing about infecting somepony else, while the thing mostly gurgled. Chalcedony blinked a few times and changed the channel.

Now there was a younger mare, with silver mane and dark blue coat. She was standing in front of a burning building, a line of text scrolling underneath with information. “The fire continues to rage out of control, and still no sign of help from either military or civilians. One can only ask, what is holding the Alliance back?” She made to continue, but somepony off-camera made a squeaking noise as a pair of shadowy ponies moved towards them. The film cut off and started on a different news story with a wig bearing stallion.

Another click brought up a unicorn wearing some form of colorful pads. Around her several objects of different sizes floated in her orange aura. “Now to build up on your concentration. The best way to do this is by trying to levitate many objects at once, but don’t strain yourself! Magical backlash will leave you out of it for hours. For additional difficulty, try-”

“Ugh, turn off that trash,” said a voice behind Chalcedony. “If you’re really looking for something to watch, I’m sure we can arrange something more fun.”

She turned to face the mare standing behind her, bearing a lascivious grin that quickly faded. “Oh. Well, I am sorry. You would’ve been cute if not for that, thing, on your head.”

Confused and insulted, Chalcedony groaned in exasperation. “What is so wrong about being a unicorn?!”

The mare glowered at her. “As if you don’t know. Your kind has been lording over ours for centuries. The Earthen March is here to collect our dues.”

Chalcedony tried to question her further, but she left the room. The unicorn remained in the lounge for a while longer, inattentively flicking through channels as she brooded. When she did leave, she nearly ran into Vanilla waiting at the door.

“Apparently letting you roam without escort is trouble. I... will show you through the Star Marcher. So long as you cooperate.”

Chalcedony immediately asked him to lead the way to the gravity defying cube, and pried him with questions on the way. Vanilla answered only a few, mostly those that related to the earth ponies in particular. The ‘Star Marcher’ was the name of the ship. Formerly a luxury interstellar ship, it was rebuilt (by earth ponies) to serve as a command ship. The Earthen March was formed seventy-eight years ago, for the reasons of furthering the earth pony cause. And yes, they did have an onboard greenery (better than anything a unicorn can grow, he assured).

Now at the cube chamber, Chalcedony experimented with the gravity fields on the walls. She made a full circuit of the room, and held herself half over one wall, half over another, and stayed attached to the ground. Vanilla was stationary, watching her with an unamused expression. Then she tensed, preparing to make a short hop, and he stopped her. “Better not. The fields don’t extend very far above the surface.”

From there, she had a choice of wings to visit. There were four main ones, the commons, the public, the military, and the greenery. Each door in the cube went to a different point in the wings, with a few leading to offshoots like ‘maintenance’ or ‘pumps’. Having already seen the other three, and having ever seen a single tree, Chalcedony chose the greenery, trying to get Vanilla to move faster.

This door was guarded by four soldiers, who searched them before even considering letting them in. They were reluctant to allow Chalcedony in, but the scryer on her leg convinced them that she wouldn’t be too much a danger. They were waved through into a detox chamber like the one from the docking station, and liberally sprayed with liquid chemicals. A gust of warm air dried them, and the inner doors slid open.

Chalcedony had begun to giggle at the mess Vanilla’s mane had become, but stopped seeing the greenery in full. Willows, firs, and oaks towered towards the ceiling, laden with spring leaves. Other trees She had never heard of bore blossoms of blue, or gold, or other vibrant colors. Beneath these were the flowers and bushes and vines, bearing their harvests. Her mouth watered at the smells wafting from them, and she drifted in as if in a dream. Vanilla followed behind her, one corner of his lip curled so slightly.

They ended up spending the rest of the day in the greenery, to which Vanilla did not object. The days end was announced by overhead intercoms, telling the time as 17:00. Vanilla lead them out, back into the public wing. Chalcedony bent her head, expecting to be confined in the cell again, until Vanilla gestured into one of the rooms. It was a spare, and Chalcedony was allowed it’s use for a while.

The room was sparse, with a bed, a dresser, and a desk with a pillow seat. The bedding was softer than that of the cells, and she thought it might be softer than those on Zerra. And, remembering her lost planet, her mood fell and she lay on the bed, silently grieving for an hour or two before sleep took her.

She awoke to a faint hissing noise, coming from outside. Groggy, she lumbered off the bed and bruised her knee against the desk, remembering her old home’s layout. She sighed and cleared her eyes, opening the door. Or trying to; the gears inside made a whirring noise, and the door shook, but it was stuck. Chalcedony peaked through the window and saw a trio of colts outside, snickering while a fourth did something to her door. Adjusting her view, she saw that he had a welder in hoof and was sealing her door.

When they were done, ignoring the trapped mare’s knocking, they collectively blew a raspberry and fled. Chalcedony banged on the door for a minute before giving up, pacing around the room. ‘This,’ she thought, ‘is just as bad as the cell.’ She lifted her foreleg and pointed the scryer at the door, saying “I’m, uh, locked in? Could somepony unweld my door?”

An hour later Vanilla finished prying the door open, managing to look irritated around the crowbar. “You can not even rest without finding problems,” he observed, leading the way to the mess hall. Chalcedony didn’t mention the colts, walking behind Vanilla and avoiding the eyes of everypony else.

They sat at a table remote from the rest, and predictably empty, and Vanilla got their food. Taking a bite, he choked and coughed it onto his tray, spitting curses. “Who puts hot sauce on sprouts?” He looked up to see Chalcedony’s reaction, but she munched away happily. Vanilla snuck a bite from her tray and, tasting heat, spat it out as well.

“Are you going to finish that?” she asked, reaching for his tray once hers was empty. Vanilla pushed it forwards. His comfort for that morning was the confusion on the prankster chefs’ faces.

Yesterday’s tour resumed, this time leading to the more banal sections. Chalcedony lost interest quickly. The sudden blaring of the alarm caught them aimlessly wandering the corridors. Every light on the ship turned flashing red, and an automated voice told everypony to find a secure place.

“What’s going on?” Chalcedony asked, choosing not to acknowledge her yelp of surprise a moment ago.

“The Star Marcher’s under attack,” Vanilla said, jogging to the nearest emergency room. Chalcedony followed him into a cramped closet space, filled with cleaning supplies. She raised an eyebrow, and Vanilla shrugged. “It’s blast proof.”

The alarm lasted for a few long minutes, during which the ship shuddered once. The two ponies sat as far from each other as they could manage, and were uncomfortably silent or anxious the whole time. As soon as the sirens ended, Vanilla practically leapt out of the closet, and questioned a colt galloping passed.

“It was the Sky-lords!” he shouted, excited. “A couple of their hunting ships got too close, but we showed them! Knocked em’ clean out of their precious sky!” Giving a cheer, the pony ran down the hallway. The voice on the intercom spoke up suddenly.

“All passengers proceed to the nearest harness. Spacial jump in ten minutes. All ponies...” They left the hall, moving further into the public wing to find a harness area. These turned out to be long halls lined with seats on either wall, lengths of cloth and metal attached to each one. It was specifically designed to ease, if not remove, the effects of a spatial jump.

Vanilla strapped her into a seat, giving the belts a last tug to ensure safety. He took the seat next to hers, which had been given a wide berth by everypony aboard. Above them, the metallic voice of the intercom continued: “All ponies secure yourselves, spatial jump in three minutes.” Chalcedony sat, eager to get her first taste of space faring technology.

“What’s it like?” she asked Vanilla.

“Supposedly based on unicorn teleports, but remade by earthen ingenuity,” he said. It surprised her that he had actually answered, and he mistook the silence. “You horn heads got magic, we have the strength in our legs and the genius of our minds.”

Unfort

unately this opened the floodgates, and Chalcedony was asking questions faster than he could think of the answer. Everything from when they first managed it to how fast could they go. As the timer hit half a minute he told her to stay quiet and see for herself.

At zero, the constant hum of the ships machinery lulled, and everything was silent for a single second. Then the noise returned a hundredfold, a droning buzz that reverberated in teeth and stomachs. The floor beneath their hooves bucked upwards, stray trinkets bouncing in their containers. Chalcedony opened her mouth to ask if this was normal when the breath was pulled out of her, as though there was a breach in the hull sucking all the oxygen out. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the other passengers gaping like fish, and would have laughed except for the pressure. And now she saw their images begin to melt backwards like rubber being pulled. Everything seemed to follow suit, creating a nauseating mirage. Finally she blinked, or thought she did, because everything turned black. When color returned, the ship was like normal and the ponies were filling their lungs with air, some already leaving their seats. The jump had completed. Chalcedony’s last thought before she passed out was ‘how long did that take?’

The answer was precisely three and a half seconds.

Chapter 4

Chalcedony stirred, her head in a pulsing agony, and somepony prodding her insistently. She opened her eyes slowly, and shut them when the world seemed to be a spinning madness. Just a brief glimpse had made her stomach churn. The pony above her chuckled.

“General wants to see ya, and no, pukin’ ain’t an excuse not to.” The pony, a stallion by the sound of it, dragged Chalcedony to her feet and lead her by a series of tugs and pokes; she wouldn’t open her eyes.

It took a short time to reach their destination, and the pony guided her into a cushioned seat. There was a silence, then a new, smoother voice said “It’s considered rude for a guest not to look at her host, on most worlds.”

Chalcedony peeked an eye open and was assailed again by the dizzying world, though it was somewhat lessened. She coughed, and began to retch, and the pony at her side placed a bucket in front of her. Groaning, embarrassed by her display, Chalcedony managed to bear the rest of her swirling vision until it cleared.

She had been brought to a richly painted room, every available space taken by some trinket or display. Crimson curtains hung from each corner, outlined in gold thread and designed with silver. Similarly decorated cushions were carefully laid out throughout the room, so as to look busy yet not clustered. There were paintings on the wall, of mythical monsters and historic heroes, and each had a light focussed on it. The further half of the floor was elevated above the closer by a short step, and a desk was on that side. Behind the desk was a green stallion with an oiled, silvered mane and slicked goatee. He smiled down at her from his raised seating.

“I am General Ivy Treasure, and that,” he gestured to the helmet wearing grey pony next to her, “is Lieutenant Slate. You’ve been a, guest, aboard my ship for a few days now, and I do not believe we’ve been introduced yet.”

Still taking in her surroundings, Chalcedony didn’t respond at first. When Slate cleared his throat, she started and blushed. “I’m Chalcedony. Uh, sir. General.”

The general smiled a slightly different smile, and brought out a green glass bottle from his desk. “Ivy will be just fine. You are under the protection of me and my soldiers, after all.” Ivy poured the bottle’s contents into two stout glasses, filling them with amber liquid. “Care for a drink?”

Chalcedony accepted the glass, and Slate moved away to stand at his general’s side after disposing of the sick-bucket. Ivy made a toasting motion with his glass, and seeing Chalcedony struggling to hold her own with her hoof, told her “You are allowed to use magic here, m’lady.” Seeing her startled look, he added “The ponies of the Earthen March may have been, well, less than accepting of you, but they are but simple soldiers. Do not judge us all by their actions.”

She took a sip, now comfortably levitating the glass. It tasted like honey and flowers, and burned pleasantly. Licking her lips, she drank the rest quickly, and Ivy moved down to refill her glass, wearing a new smile that looked bemused and indulgent. Before he could speak however, a voice buzzed out of his desk.

“Sir, one of the prisoners got loose during the jump.”

Ivy turned to address the speaker. “THE prisoner, Chin. Chalcedony is under our care as a guest.” Chin made an affirmative noise, and Ivy smiled back at her. “Find the prisoner and lock him up again. That is your job, no?” The voice grunted and went silent.

“Where were we... Ah, yes. As I said before, the soldiers aboard this ship, loyal they may be, are not the most welcoming of others. I’ve invited you to my personal room to show you the higher breed within the Earthen March, in the hopes you may leave with a better taste of us. And besides which, I,” and Ivy stopped suddenly, letting the sentence hang.

Chalcedony finished her second glass, and feeling the fuzzy influence of the drink, took the bait. “You, what?”

At this, Ivy moved closer, so that their coats almost touched. She could smell something like cinnamon on him. “I can appreciate beauty in new things,” he whispered, flicking his tail over hers. Chalcedony blushed harder than before, and made a try to jerk away, but the strong drink and Ivy’s quick hoof kept her still. “If I am moving faster than you are used to, do not fear. I mean nothing but flattery. For now.” And he stepped away, letting the mare breathe easily. Slate bore a lecherous grin that he quickly hid once his general turned to him.

“Slate, if you would be so kind as to get some proper food for Miss Chalcedony. It pains me to know she’s been wasting away on the fare of the common soldier.” Slate saluted smartly, and trotted into a side room. Chalcedony thought to defend the chefs and their taste in hot sauce, but was interrupted by a freshly filled glass. “It’s called Summer wine, and you must have a discerning tongue to take to it so... enthusiastically.”

Slate returned with a pile of dishes on his back, and spread them on the desk. Served on fine dishware was steaming vegetables and still warm bread with jams and cheeses. On the side was a collection of pastries and sweets. Ivy prepared a plate for Chalcedony, but after a few bites she found it too rich, and her stomach was already unsettled by the Summer wine. While they ate, Ivy told her about many things that passed unheeded. His lineage, some of the battles he had lead, where he had gotten the paintings.

Chalcedony perked her ears when he mentioned Vanilla, though. “I do hope he has tried to be accommodating. We had a fierce talk, he and I, and I should hope that he was not so brutish to you afterwards.” Chalcedony tilted her head, hearing his words as if through a thick sheet. “He is assigned to be your protector, and a rude servant is a poor one. Though I suppose he failed to tell you.” Here he laughed politely. “Always that way with the young ones, reluctant to be reassigned no matter who does it. Do make good use of him, though; I’d hate to see his, ahem, talents gone to waste while he is in your service.”

Confused, Chalcedony tried to ask what Ivy meant by that, but the fuzziness in her thoughts hampered it, and when she opened her mouth it was to sip from her glass again. When the meal was done, she tried to stand from her seat and stumbled over her own hooves. “Slate, if you would escort the Miss to her room. It seems she’s had too much to drink, and should have plenty of time to sleep it off before we get to NewMane.”

Slate lead her out of the general’s room, and down a short way. Chalcedony realized they were in the military wing as they passed the training rooms, and was directed to a guarded door. They parted for Slate without prompt, and he showed her to an empty room, almost as kingly as Ivy’s. She fell onto the bed, and went to sleep quickly in the plush blankets.

The next day Vanilla knocked on her door, having been redirected here by one of the general’s messages. A haggard, disheveled mare answered him, hiding her eyes from the dimmed lighting. He lifted a brow but said nothing, leaving her to tidy herself before they went out. It took only a moment for her to sort out her mane, though the bloodshot eyes remained. Fidgeting under his eyes, she said something about drinking too much in a hoarse voice.

They went to the mess hall for a late breakfast, but Chalcedony could not stomach any food. Then Vanilla lead them to the docking bay, where dozens of other ponies milled about.

“We are almost at NewMane,” he said, answering her unspoken question. “ponies are eager for their world-leave.”

“What’s NewMane?” Chalcedony asked.

“Alliance control planet for this sector.”

Seeing she would get little more, Chalcedony waited with the rest, though predictably far apart from all but Vanilla.

The Star Marcher landed unsteadily, and the outer doors opened onto a wide catwalk. The ponies aboard flooded out, making their way to the nearby city. Chalcedony and Vanilla were the last ones to leave.

The catwalk they stood on was one of an interconnected web, branching off in a hundred different ways to accommodate all of the docking ships. Vessels of every size and model were resting on platforms below and above, ponies bustling to and fro every level. It was a constant stream of activity as ships unloaded their passengers or prepared to take off, and the noise was nearly deafening.

Vanilla stepped off and breathed deeply on the fresher air. Chalcedony paused, one hoof hovering above the catwalk, staring awed at the sky above. Vanilla waited impatiently for her to recover.

“It’s so... different,” she said at last, breathless. “The sky, the smell, the air. A new world. I’ve never even been off Zerra, and now I’m standing on an entirely different world!” Chalcedony laughed shortly, utterly terrified. “Is that a new sun, too? Are we even in the Red Shake system?”

She didn’t wait for an answer, and hopped off the ship with a wince as though expecting a blow. Then, standing on a new world, she pranced in place for a second and opened her eyes, looking upwards. Her mouth made an ‘oh’ as she saw the Star Marcher from the outside.

It looked much the same as it did from the escape pod days ago, but put in perspective she saw just how massive it truly was. Most of the other ships could fit entirely inside it, some more than once with room to spare. And then there was the jagged wound on it’s side. It appeared that the ill-fated Sky-lord ships managed to hit the Star Marcher before being destroyed; it ran at least half a mile, exposing bits of the ship’s intestines. Pegasi were fluttering about it, assessing the damage, until a group of Marchers came up and shooed them.

Vanilla finally managed to lead her away, though he was once more bombarded with questions. Most of these were about NewMane, of which he had little knowledge, but curtly told what he could. They were still in the Red Shake, a few planets away from Zerra. The city itself was a new addition, only twenty and change years old. It was there that the Equestrian Alliance coordinated their movements throughout their colonies, minor they may be.

They entered the city proper, and once more Chalcedony was overwhelmed. The buildings raised into the sky, spears of metal and glass that pierced the cloud layer at their tips. Crosswalks and maneuverable platforms criss-crossed the different layers of NewMane city, and here the noise of space faring engines was replaced by the bustle of everyday ponyfolk. Brightly lit signs pointed every direction, advertising stores or restaurants or other less family friendly places. Trees floated on magical platforms, spinning in place like tops.

Vanilla lead them first down a few layers to find an affordable hotel. The one he picked was called ‘Ursa’s Rest,’ and had a picture of a great blue bear on the sign with twinkling z’s around it. It was a simple place, and Vanilla rented them separate rooms for a week, much to the disappointment of the desk attendant. He deposited his spare belongings in his room. Chalcedony waited outside, having nothing of her own.

Next was supplies. They went from store to store, mostly at the pleading of Chalcedony. Vanilla had bought groceries enough for the time being at their first stop, but the unicorn wanted to find every new thing possible to try. He tried to stop the shopping spree, but eventually gave in and tried to keep Chalcedony away from the more volatile foods. Food poisoning would just make things worse.

Last was a new weapon for Vanilla. And, seeing as Chalcedony had been the one to destroy his previous, he decided she would pay for it.

“I don’t have any money, though.”

“The scryer works as a credit bit, too.” Vanilla told her as they browsed through the window displays. “Should have about a thousand.”

Finding one he liked, Vanilla went to talk to the salespony, leaving Chalcedony to look about while they talked weapon-jargon. There was a wide selection of choices available, rifles, pistols, lancers, and the larger cannons and blasters, all using energy chips as ammunition. They even had a few melee options; swords and spears and the like that bristled with magical power. What Vanilla had set his sights on, though, was rarer than all these things. A classic style, saddle mounted repeater rifle. Capable of using almost any bullet available Powder, the salespony, told him.

It cost far more than they could afford, even with their combined funds, but Powder was willing to give them a loan for the rest. They left the store, Vanilla carrying his purchase on his back.

“How are we going to pay for that?” Chalcedony asked. “Unless you’ve got some savings, we are over three thousand bits in debt.”

“There’s plenty of work in NewMane,” he answered, looking over his shoulder at her. “Besides that, there is no ‘we’. You’ve already done all you could to repay me, despite it being funds from the March.”

Chalcedony considered this. “Well, I owe the March some bits then, don’t I? You’re part of the March, so if I paid you back, we’re even. And with both of us working, we’ll pay off the debt faster, too.”

Vanilla sighed deeply, but did not object further. He took them throughout the city, searching for fliers or help-wanted signs. There were some that were too far out of their skills to be viable. Some paid minimally for gruelling work. Most were already taken by returned ponies, trying to pay off their own debts. Finally they came across a small building nestled between two others, with a sign reading ‘Dealer’s Contracts.’ There was a short line, but according to Vanilla there were often more contracts than ponies willing to take them.

They waited, and came at last to the front to meet a greying unicorn with a wide brimmed hat, which he tipped off as greeting. “Haven’t seen you two before, so let me introduce myself; I am Dealer, proprietor of this fine establishment. If you need a quick job, I’m your stallion.”

Seeing Vanilla tense up at the sight of the horn, Chalcedony spoke first. “Hi! I’m Chalcedony, this is Vanilla Drops. We uh, need a ‘quick job’, so...” She trailed off.

“Any past experience with mercenary work, combat, escorting, working under stress, tending wounds, repairing machinery, outlaw hunting, or critter wrangling?”

Chalcedony paused a moment to decipher the sudden stream of words and started to shake her head. “Oh, wait! Vanilla’s a Sergeant with the Earthen March!”

Dealer inspected the other stallion. “Heard of the March. More like a guard detail than actual warriors.” Vanilla bristled but stayed silent. “How much fighting have you actually seen, boy?”

“I fought at Jellus and Ignus, and have served the March for thirteen years.”

“He killed a, well, an eagle thing, at Zerra too.” Chalcedony pitched in.

Dealer laughed. “Think that’s called a gryphon. What’d you do to tick him off, call him an eggling?”

“It was a she, and, no. I don’t think so,” Chalcedony said, and gave him a brief description of the attack on Zerra. At the end, Dealer whistled.

“Sky-lords, now those are some proper fighters. No offence, Chalc’, but your colony didn’t stand a chance.” Ignoring her frown, he turned to a screen at his side with the label ‘Spark-screen’. “Given your record, and lack of experience, respectively, I don’t think I can place you on the tougher contracts yet. Can’t send rookies out to fight wars, just gets em’ dead and me a bad reputation. How about an escort?”

The job was to guard a small caravan as it traveled through the untamed lands of NewMane to supply a smaller town. Bandits had been causing trouble for awhile, and numbers was a good way to dissuade them. They accepted, and Dealer gave them each a paper that would get them on the caravan.

They left, and had just enough time for lunch before they had to report in. All along the way, Chalcedony tried to gather as much information as she could about what might happen. The dangers, the usual plans, if she would get her own gun. Vanilla stayed silent, only telling her that should a fight actually happen she should hide somewhere. Not for her safety, but so that she wouldn’t get in the way, he was careful to emphasize.

The caravan was to leave from the eastern edge of the city, and it was there that the two found them. Fifteen ponies were gathered around a large, patchworked cart with a harness for four ponies. Seven were obviously fellow mercenaries, grizzled ponies that had their own weapons and stood apart from the rest. The other eight ranged from young to middle aged, and were busy checking the supplies.

Vanilla, once they had left the weapon restricted city, was wearing his own gun saddle and left to talk to the other earth pony mercenaries. Chalcedony watched the cart until it was ready to leave. The wall in front of them slid open as they approached it, and gusts of arid wind blew sand into their faces. Outside the city was an endless desert, with the sun glaring yellow and unhindered.

Four of the cart ponies hitched themselves in and set off, everypony else taking positions around it. Thus started the first day of a week long journey to the town of Brown Cactus.

An hour out, Chalcedony found herself with nopony to talk to. Vanilla had taken a spot at the rear of the troop. The other mercenaries just laughed at her or made lewd comments, sometimes both, when she tried to talk to them. Most of the caravaners were too busy tending to the rickety cart, or pulling it, to hold a long conversation.

There was an older stallion that was rarely at the harness, though. He called himself Dusted, and was friendlier than the rest.

“I’m an old vet’, actually.” Dusted explained when Chalcedony asked about his role. “Signed up with Generosity after I got honorably discharged. Hold your questions,” he chuckled, stopping the mare with her mouth half open. “I’ll get to it sooner or later. Generosity’s the name of the, hm... I’d say ‘company’, but it seems more like a religion to these ponies. Well, they call themselves preachers of Generosity, so I s’pose that’s what they are. I wouldn’t know much about them, only joined up a year back. They go about the stars, helping who they can, and that was enough for me.”

Dusted motioned to the supply laden cart behind them. “This here’s for a little town way out there. They’re too far away for the Alliance to really bother with ‘em, and the usual traders have been scared off by the bandits. The preachers here heard about it, and they started throwing together a care package. Elsewise, Brown Cactus’d probably starve, or get overrun with crooks, or some such.”

“What about your discharge?” Chalcedony asked. “Er, honorable discharge, I meant. Who’d you serve with?”

“I was a captain with the Equestrian’s five-hundred and first, aboard the Blue-streak. That ships little more than scrap metal now, and the five-oh-one is just about the same. We got dragged into a real mess, nothing short of waking an angry hydra up in it’s swamp. You ever hear of an arms race, Chalcy?” She shook her head, rapt. “Two sides get to fearin’ the other, and instead of butting heads or talking it out they try to intimidate them. So they set to building more and bigger weapons, until their arsenal is insurmountable. When both sides do the same thing, though, it- Well, it turns into a self feeding cycle. Soon enough, both of em’ got enough power to blow their planet out of the skies and got a bad case of trigger-hoof.”

Dusted fell silent until Chalcedony pressed him for more details. “Later,” he told her with a sad smile. “Tales like this ain’t fit for a marching tune.”

They walked the rest of the day quietly, and as they set out camp Chalcedony saw that the desert still stretched past the horizon. The mercenaries made their own tents away from the preacher’s. Chalcedony was searching for Vanilla when he said “Do you have a tent?”

“No,” she answered, turning to face him. “I thought you did?” He sighed and went to speak to some ponies. Chalcedony went to find Dusted.

He was sitting by his own small fire, apart from the growing bonfire. An energy pistol was in his hooves, and he was cleaning the various parts of it.

“How much longer till we leave the desert?” she asked, taking a seat across from him. He laughed.

“NewMane’s a sand planet, Chalcy. Sand and salt, really. Not a drop of water here for millions of years, if you listen to the scientist ponies.”

“Why build a base here? There must be a greener world in the system.”

“You ever wonder why it’s called the Red Shake?” Dusted put away his pistol, and shook a hoofful of sand over the flames. “It’s cause every world around here’s called a ‘red planet’. Means they all got nothing but dust, sand, and rock. Great for mining, apparently. Bad for everything else. The Alliance set up shop here cause it’s pretty central, and has a manageable gravity. No fun trying to take off when the laws a’ physics are toying with you.”

“Oh,” Chalcedony pawed the ground. “I just thought there might, you know, might be some other life nearby. I used to look at the stars and think that maybe they were full of trees, and strange creatures just waiting to be discovered.”

“Nothing to be ashamed of. I used to wish the same thing. And hay, ponies haven’t even covered a fraction of the universe yet. There could be some new life out there, somewhere.” Dusted smiled awkwardly, and Chalcedony returned her own small grin.

“We are allowed to rest in the caravan, provided we do not tamper with the supplies,” said Vanilla from behind. Chalcedony blushed and stood up.

“Goodnight, Dusted. Sir.”

“Dusted’s fine. And don’t let the parasprites bite.”

Vanilla lead her back to the caravan. Looking inside, it seemed wide enough to fit them comfortably, but Chalcedony hesitated. “I can sleep outside, if you want,” she said. Vanilla just stared.

“I was- If I am to protect you, it would be easier if you did not sleep outside. Where the bandits can see you.”

Conceding the point, Chalcedony situated herself on the opposite wall, careful to avoid the various packages. She said goodnight to Vanilla; he just grunted and closed his eyes.

In the morning, the ponies packed up camp and ate some traveler’s bread; a hard thing that took far longer to spoil and was infused with minerals. Chalcedony tried to ask Dusted about his service again, but each time was distracted by another story. He talked of his time as a bouncer for a night club, about his sister who became a lawyer of some kind, and other things. Eventually the subject came to his mark.

“Got it when I was fifteen.” Dusted said, looking fondly at it. It was a pair of sticks crossed over a white flag. “I was still working as a bouncer at ‘The Breast Around’,” he cringed at the name, “and a couple colts got into a fight. I don’t know what exactly caused it, but they were going at it fierce. My job didn’t say anything about stopping fights outside the club, but I figured one of em’ was bound to do something they’d regret. So I stepped in and walloped the tails off of both until they were too sore to keep swinging. Then I sat them down and straightened em’ out. They went their separate ways, and I never heard from either. Didn’t notice the mark till I got home. Sis’ said my talent was peace. I laughed at her, told her I got it by beating up a couple of rowdy colts. She said ‘That you did, but you got em’ to stop fighting. And I bet my bits that they won’t fight each other again after that talking to.’ Moral of the story; to get to peace, either find the white flag and wave it, or jab everyone with the stick till they stop fighting.”

Chalcedony laughed with Dusted at the end. Then she looked thoughtfully back at Vanilla. “I’ve never even seen his mark,” she said.

“Why do you hang about him, anyways?” Dusted asked. “He seems like a cold sort by nature, but he’s downright freezing when it comes to you. ‘Less I’m missing something that a mare might notice...”

“Oh, no no, nothing like that!” Chalcedony said with an embarrassed chuckle. “Just, he saved my life back on Zerra. And now, on some new planet, I’m clueless. Useless. I... I need him, otherwise I’d just be lost and afraid.”

Dusted accepted this. “If I was still in my prime, I’d happily show you about. But I’m an old pony now, and content on this older rock. Fraid’ our paths are gonna go different directions, Chalcy.”

The rest of the day passed uneventfully.

On the third day, Dusted had to tow the cart and couldn’t talk, so Chalcedony went to speak to one of the preachers. It seemed that, no matter what she said, the other pony always tied it back to Generosity.

“Generosity is a noble calling,” the mare said, smiling blissfully. Chalcedony had no idea what this had to do with their lack of a modern cart. “It teaches us to care for our fellow pony, and give to them. ‘All good deeds will be repaid’ is our motto.” This was the majority of her more sensible speech. Often times she just quoted scripture from ‘Generosity’s book,’ as though that was the answer to whatever Chalcedony had asked.

Dusted went to sleep almost immediately, once they stopped for the night. Chalcedony went to her spot in the caravan early, and was surprised to see Vanilla there as well.

She said, mostly to herself, “These ponies are crazy. Well, maybe not crazy. But they’re...”

“Crazy?” Vanilla finished, and snorted. He said nothing else that night, but Chalcedony deemed it a success.

Halfway through the fourth day and Chalcedony was being taught by Dusted on how to navigate a desert. She had been curious about how the caravan ponies were going to find the town, and Dusted had been willing to divulge what little skill he had gained in the area. As he was trying to explain the differences in dunes, the sands exploded into motion.

Ponies appeared on either side of them, dressed in sandy brown and wielding salvaged weapons. Without word or hesitation they opened fire on the caravan, sending the preachers scattering for cover. The mercenaries, once they recovered from their own surprise, returned fire. Chalcedony stood frozen until Dusted shouted for her to hide under the cart. She did just that, joining several others as they cowered.

Outside, the gunfight raged. The mercenaries, Vanilla included, had formed a defensive circle around the cart, putting it between them and the bandits they couldn’t see. One bandit charged in, uncaring for the bullets and beams that hit him, wielding a great scimitar. He swung it, hewing off the foreleg of a mare, before a lucky bullet punctured his head and he fell. Amidst the barrage, another bandit fell; one whistled harshly as this happened. The rest turned and fled, quickly vanishing in the desert. It had lasted barely a minute, and Chalcedony had heard little but grunts and blasts.

Chalcedony moved out from under the cart, watching the dunes for signs of the bandits. Then she noticed the maimed mare, gasping as blood squirted from her stump. Chalcedony’s coat turned even paler, and she made several motions towards and away from the injured mare; she wanted to help, but had no clue how to do it. Finally a preacher shoved her aside, moving to the mare with a medipack and trying to stop the bleeding. Chalcedony sat where she had fallen, feeling scared and helpless.

Dusted wrapped a foreleg around her, leading her away from the grisly scene as the mare died. He deposited her on the other side of the caravan and gave her a sip of water. Chalcedony just stared into the sands, tasting imagined, bitter, copper in her mouth. Feeling a hoof rubbing at her side, she looked over and saw that the blood had seeped into her coat while she was hiding.

“Oh,” she said, then turned her head to the side and retched.

All told, the bandit attack had been a failure. Two brown clad bodies lay dead, and many more were injured if the mercenaries were truthful. Both had the signs of famine about their skeletal frames, and the scimitar wielder wore a layer of protective metals beneath the cloth. Of the mercenaries, only the one mare was dead, and two others had small injuries. The preachers were unscathed, more upset at the damage done to their supplies.

They debated for a while about whether to bury the mare in the sand, or carry her back to NewMane so her affairs could be sorted. Finally they settled for wrapping her body in a spare cloth and carrying her in the cart, until the corpse began to rot. Then the caravan set off once more as though nothing had happened, and went on till the sun began to set.

Dusted had to find Chalcedony this time, and found her sitting in the darkness outside of camp. He took a seat next to her and said nothing, watching the stars.

“I didn’t even know her name,” the unicorn said at last.

Dusted shifted closer without touching her and said “Would’ve been worse if you did. But this is the way of things now. Ponies killing each other over treasure and duty. I’ve been dodgin’ your questions about my discharge cause I hoped you’d never really understand the answer. Seems like now’s as good a time as any; if you still want to hear it.” Chalcedony nodded once, barely lifting her eyes to see the stallion next to her.

“What I said before, ‘bout an arms race; that wasn’t just random thoughts from an old vet.” Dusted breathed deep and began his tale.

“The Alliance and the Sky-lords are regular enemies, biting at each others throats whenever they can. Few decades ago, they both set their sights on a planet very far away. It was filled with things they were just chompin’ at the bit to get, wood and metals and the like. They had a sort of truce for a while, both realizing that any action to take the planet would mean open war. So they sent in spies and saboteurs, and when those came back with reports on the other side’s bombs and such, they set to building more.

“This had been going on for a some years before I ever got involved. I’d just been promoted to captain, and my first assignment was to go in and settle a riot planet-side. Cause all the time those two sides were glaring at each other, the colonists were caught in the crossfire. They were an angry bunch, and rightfully so.

“So I head down there, do my thing for a few weeks, and suddenly all Tartarus is set loose. ‘Parently somepony somewhere got trigger happy, ended up causing a little skirmish. In the end, the damages were minor, but that was just the spark they needed to start up a war. Within an hour, I get orders from the Alliance to join up with the rest of five-oh-one and fight the Sky-lords. By the next day, armies are stomping all across the planet, killing everypony in sight. End of the week, the first bombs are dropped. Could’ve just ended it there, looked down on the wreck they’d made with just that, but no. They had to retaliate, had to show that they weren’t gonna be messed with.” Dusted had grown more agitated as he spoke, but caught himself and calmed down.

“One thing lead to another. Everypony on the planet was told to evacuate to the space ships. Course they didn’t rightly care about what happened to us. The glassers and flare-drops fell by the dozens before anyone had a decent chance to get outta there. An entire planet laid to waste in an hour or so. All over somepony’s greed and stubbornness.”

Dusted sat silent for awhile, eyes closed, Chalcedony watching him with a horrified awe. He spoke again, very solemnly. “Most of the five-oh-one was killed on the planet, along with the rest of the poor souls. I escaped by some joke of luck, and was honorably discharged with the other survivors. Now they call that planet Hallow; like hallowed ground, I s’pose. It’s nothing more than a big lump of molten rock and ruins.”

“So, yeah. There’s your welcome to the universe Chalcy. Guess it’s up to me to apologize for my generation’s failures. Sorry.”

Chalcedony leaned over and rested her head on Dusted’s shoulder. She had no words to say to the former captain. They sat like that for the rest of the night, watching the stars in the cloudless sky.

The rest of the journey passed uneventfully. The caravan made it to Brown Cactus and buried the dead mare there. The supplies were given to the mayor of the town, and they stayed the night to restock on travelling supplies. It was a small place, and they seemed thankful for the supplies, but Chalcedony stayed to herself. She and Vanilla had been given the deceased’s tent to use, since the cart had been occupied, and she would hide in this most of the day.

The caravan left without fanfare, and the journey back was just as dull.

Once in NewMane, the preachers gave each of the mercenaries a card to show for completion of the job. Chalcedony said farewell to Dusted, who was staying with Generosity. Then Vanilla lead the way back to Dealer’s Contracts where they showed their cards and retold the events to Dealer.

“Contract fulfilled, and only one casualty. Not even a civilian, either. Nice job you two; you’ll be in the heavy stuff before you know it.” He handed them each a new card, valid for a seven hundred credits at any Alliance store. Smiling, he pulled up a new document on the spark-screen. “If you’re up for it, got a new one. A small fry, nothing you two can’t handle, less that last one was a fluke.”

Vanilla looked at Chalcedony, who had been subdued since their return. She kept her gaze on her hooves without response.

“If it helps any, this is foalnapping case. The Force can’t be bothered to give a feather about some small settlement off in the desert. Just pop in, investigate, you don’t even have to confront the pony; just report it to a Forcer and they’ll handle it. Easy as could be.”

“Foalnapping?” Chalcedony asked, one eye peeking out from under her mane.

Dealer leaned back in his seat, sales-pony grin coming to his face. “Terrible thing, it is. In the last two months, seven ponies have gone missing. Oldest was fifty something, youngest was six. Poor kids, taken right from their mother’s teats while their security does nothing.”

Vanilla made a move to speak, disliking the stallion’s attempts to guilt them into the contract, but Chalcedony interrupted him. “We’ll take it.”

Dealer nodded, tapping the screen and tying it to their file. “Next trip out is tomorrow. Here’s your tickets, paid for of course. Payment will be negotiated on your return. Best of luck!”

When they left the building, Vanilla didn’t pause before berating his companion. “What were you thinking? We know nothing about the situation, or the ponies, or, well, anything! We are going into a possibly dangerous zone without a plan or information.”

“Well, I’m not just leaving those foals to some crazy pony!” Chalcedony said, and thinking the argument settled, walked off a ways. She stopped and turned when Vanilla didn’t follow. “Aren’t you coming?”

Vanilla glared at her, muttering under his breath, but walked after with reluctant hooves.

Prologue

Nearly a millennium ago, we cast out into the void of space, riding our machines into the last frontier. Our solar system had been mapped, charted, observed, and theorized until it’s foreign soils were familiar to us who had never seen them. The cold moon, lifeless and imperious. The distant planets, Aithon shining second only to the sun, Anemoi of the endless icy plateaus, Skylla bathed in boundless oceans. All seen through metal eyes. All judged for life and found wanting.

Ponykind rose from it’s humble planet with eager hearts, seeking in the darkness other life. The universe was vast beyond reckoning, and the chances for alien civilization was as likely as not. In the golden days of the First Expedition, the three tribes competed with the Griffin kingdom, striving towards new galaxies, new resources. There was hope, and enthusiasm befitting the young races.

But we were alone. No matter how far we sailed through the stars, only desolate planets greeted us, drifting about cruel suns.

So we built. We colonized. We harvested.

We fought.

For in the grim darkness of the future, there is only war.