Author's Notes:

How many years has it been? let's open on a two parter.

Captain’s Log 14th of Spring, 1015 C.C.,

We’re just over three days out from Little Roc--well on our way to the frontier. Thus far, this ship and her crew are performing admirably. After thorough shakedown tests, Ms. Pie has nudged our cruising speed up to Warp 5.2, which means it’ll be only another week till we reach Starbase 3.

I have faith in the mission. Even if our experiences so far have been somewhat less pleasant than we’d been anticipating, the crew handled it well. I have every confidence that they will continue to do so.

I’ve decided, in light of the events on Little Roc, that we can afford the time to make a small course diversion past the Epona colony. We don’t expect trouble, but it would be a nice gesture to the colonists… to let them know that they’re not quite so alone anymore.

~

The star lines in the bridge window slowly shrank as the ship decelerated, the deck vibrated as the engines throttled back from high warp and the starship slid into an orbit over the small blue and green ball below.

Vinyl looked over her readouts and nodded before turning in her chair, “Captain, we’ve entered orbit around Epona.”

“Very good, Ensign.” Applejack turned towards Fluttershy. “Anything?”

A pensive look on her face, she replied, “Still nothing, Ma’am. I’m definitely getting return pulses from their transmitter, but nobody’s answering my hails and I’m not reading any live data connections.”

“Well, maybe it’s a good thing we decided to drop by…” Applejack trailed off.

“Captain,” Vinyl turned to speak, “you never know with the outer colonies. Sometimes they don’t even regularly staff their comm stations, and it wasn’t like they were expecting us.”

“Maybe, but I’d rather not take any chances, maybe Little Roc has me uneasy but… we’ve got the time. We’ll send a team down. If nothin’s wrong, even better,” Applejack reasoned.

“Unofficial shore leave, nothing wrong with that,” Vinyl laughed.

“Ah, well, we have a volunteer then.” AJ raised an eyebrow.

The ensign’s face fell, but then she saluted. “Yes ma’m.”

Fluttershy softly added, “Um, Captain, maybe I should go. If there is something wrong with their comm systems, I could help.”

Applejack gave her a measuring look, then nodded. “Very well. In fact, I’m going to give you command of this one.”

The pegasus’ pupils contracted, and she let out a weak, “Ahh, umm...”

“Come now Lieutenant, I’ve seen your command simulation scores,” she said with an encouraging smile. “You’re qualified for this, but you need some real-world experience. A little colony liason like this is just the thing.”

Fluttershy swallowed, then nodded, determination coming to her face. “Yes Ma’m. I’ll take care of it.”

~~~

As the shuttle gave a small shudder, Fluttershy clutched at the crash cage that held her firmly to the copilot seat. She forced her mask of determination to stay to the fore as she looked askance at Ensign Scratch.

“Just a little reentry turbulence!” shouted the exuberant mare. “Should be smooth flying in a minute!”

The Lieutenant could only manage a weak grin as the shuttle shivered again. She glanced at the panel in front of her, where she’d opened a view of the rear cabin. Her four-pony security team was waiting, one of them apparently having fallen asleep. The craft gave one last shake, and then the air smoothed out. Fluttershy’s flight instincts told her they were in the clear even before the Ensign spoke.

“Looks good.” She gently adjusted their heading. “Coming up on ten kilometers to the primary colony site, heading in from the southeast.”

Peering out the forward viewscreen into a clear afternoon sky, Fluttershy could see the spires of the colony’s small downtown sector. She tapped a few commands into the console, then sighed. “Still no contact, though the automatic beacon is responding.”

“Yeah, I got it...locked on.”

Still staring out the window, ‘Shy suddenly noticed she was rubbing her hooves together, and forced herself to stop the old, nervous habit. “Um...circle us around the colony before you bring us down. Maybe we’ll get someone’s attention.”

“Yes’m.”

The colony grew a little larger as the ship swung around in a wide arc, yielding good views of the streets below. The wide, empty streets. Activating the lifesigns sensors, the Lieutenant let them sweep the ground as the shuttle passed overhead.

“Anything?” Vinyl’s voice betrayed a slight nervousness.

She pursed her lips as she replied, “Well...these scanners don’t do well through the prefab buildings, but there’s nothing definite yet.”

“H-how many people live here?”

“Just under four thousand, last report.” She looked over just in time to see a bead of sweat fall down the Ensign’s brow and curve around her glasses. Summoning up her best reassuring smile, Fluttershy reached over to pat Vinyl’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. There’s nothing nasty in the streets, and there are emergency shelters in the core colony buildings. If something bad happened, I’m sure they just pulled everyone back to safety.”

She didn’t mention that those same emergency shelters should definitely have had hardlines to the colony transmitter.

Doing her best to recover her nonchalant attitude, Vinyl nodded. “Of course, ma’am. We’re coming around onto the Spaceport… Reading all automatics fully operational.”

“Good. Bring us into the main dock and then seal it up after us.” She glanced at the approach vectors, then keyed the shuttle-wide comms. “Okay, get ready everypony--two minutes to doors open. No sign of any contagion, but I want us all in breathers for the moment.”

She was briefly envious of the speed at which the sleeping security officer came to life, jumping up and kitting out with the rest of her team. ‘Shy unlocked and raised her own crash cage, and then paused in her seat, and closed her eyes. She took a deep breath, holding it. This is it. No more sims. This colony is depending on us. On me.

She quietly let out the breath, as the shuttle settled gently onto the landing pad.

~~~

Vinyl shielded her eyes as the hatch dropped and the sunlight coming in through the dock’s windows poured into the shuttle’s cabin. Her sunglasses quickly darkened in response to the sudden influx of light, but not before she flinched away from the stinging in her eyes.

“You know, I’m really more of a ‘night time’ pony…” she muttered as she descended the ramp.

The senior security officer spoke up, “Maybe next time you could just keep your mouth shut ‘nstead of snarkin at the captain.”

“Nah, could never do it, Cold Case. Gotta be true to yourself after all.” Vinyl swooned dramatically. “I could never live such a lie!”

He rubbed the base of his horn with a grimace. “I have no idea how you even made it through OTS with that kind of personality.”

“That sounds a lot like insubordination, Sergeant,” Vinyl warned, her eyebrow raised behind her lenses.

“You sound a lot like a teenager,” he snapped back.

“I am a teenager,” the unicorn admitted with a shrug, “that gonna be a problem?”

The enlisted pony blinked, his mouth working mutely as his brain tried to process this new information, but he shortly gave up, with a clipped, “No, ma’m. Sorry.”

Fluttershy gave the two a glance as she paused at the top of the shuttle ramp, but her attention was focused on the scanner she held in her left wing. After a few moments, she huffed softly. “No life signs in range.” As she put the scanner away, she added, “Power readings are low as well. Ensign Scratch, could you please check that dock terminal?”

As the pilot walked over to the indicated terminal, Fluttershy gave Cold Case a mildly chastising look, then turned and grabbed a toolkit from storage, adding it to her saddlebags. As she walked down the ramp, a glimmer in the mid-afternoon sunlight caught her eye, and she walked over to the window.

The colony was harsh and rocky, the world barely inhabitable. An uneducated Equestrian pony might have called it a wasteland, but she could see the farms around the perimeter, the carefully processed soil now readily providing for life. The saving grace was the ready supply of water provided by the Lon River, which flowed serenely by at the edge of the town. Dust in the sky tinted the light a yellowish red, making it feel later than it really was. The Lieutenant peered out the window, but could see no sign of whatever movement had caught her attention.

“Well, this ain’t great.”

‘Shy looked over at the Ensign’s words, to see the young mare rubbing the back of her neck. “The power?”

“Yeah, the dock’s on emergency. Drained most of what was left opening and closing the bay doors for us. I’m getting feedback from the rest of the port, so I guess the mains got cut somewhere outside.”

“Hmm...no data access, then.”

“Nah, none of the other systems have backups, and the dock doesn’t have enough to feed anything else. Maybe if we went outside we could pick up wireless to one of the colony buildings?”

She thought about it, then shook her head. “It’s looking less and less likely that this is a contagion, but I don’t want to risk exposure just yet.”

Vinyl looked a little impatient as she responded, “Well...we’ll have to do something. There’s not even enough power left to do full purges as we open up the airlocks on the way to Command and Control.”

“Uh, ma’m?” One of the security officers ducked his head as all eyes turned to him, and he adjusted his red cravat. “Er...I’m familiar with this type of dock layout, and its power systems. I think I could patch the shuttle’s reactor in and power a fair bit of the Port off that. Would only take a few minutes.”

Fluttershy nodded. “That sounds perfect. Ms. Scratch, please assist Mr., um…”

Crimson Attire, ma’m.”

“Mr. Attire. Thank you for your initiative.”

As the two headed around the shuttle, Fluttershy went back to the windows with her scanner, and tried using a probe to pick up any outside signals. As she was sweeping through the bands, the sergeant came up next to her, and after observing for a moment, cleared his throat.

“I’m...I apologize for that, earlier, ma’am...”

She looked at him and gave a small smile. “It’s fine, Sergeant. I’d expect a little trouble in such a new crew. Missions like this will help us all become more familiar so we can pull together.”

He nodded, then looked out the window. “Are you...receiving anything?”

“No.” She tapped a few buttons. “I saw some lights as we passed overhead, but this power outage must be quite extensive. I’m picking up neutrinos consistent with their main power station, so it must be problems with the grid.”

“Huh.” His ears wiggled in confusion. “I thought standard grids were pretty redundant.”

“Normally they are,” said Vinyl, as she approached from behind, “but I wouldn’t be surprised if they cut corners here.”

As she turned to her, Fluttershy asked, “What do you mean? Why would they cut corners on something so important?”

Vinyl coughed. “It was in the colony data. They settled here because this bend in the river is the best of the few places where it slows to a sane flow rate, but it came with a tradeoff.” She waved out the window. “This entire region is a thick bed of olivine-pyroxene with heavy corundum veining throughout.”

She received blank looks from the other two ponies.

“Er...it’s tough stuff. Would be expensive and time-consuming to excavate, even with high-grade equipment.” She shrugged. “For a colony that’s just getting off the ground, I wouldn’t be too surprised if they only cut the bare minimum for utilities, and didn’t go in for extra redundancy.”

Cold Case snorted. “Yeah, when would that ever come back to bite them on the flank?”

Fluttershy sighed, then blinked as the main dock lights came on.

“Cool,” Vinyl said, “it worked. We should be able to-”

They all flinched as a screeching noise played over the audio systems in the room. When Fluttershy glanced around she noticed Cold Case had his weapon halfway unholstered. Then, a garbled audio transmission cut in:

“Lone Star...sheriff...auto-send in a day, just in case.”

The viewscreen at the terminal cleared up just long enough to give a glance of the face of a haggard-looking blond stallion with a dark brown mane, dressed in a brown vest, with a silver star pinned to it. The view distorted and went to static again, as the audio continued.

“Some foals disappearing...ponies...disappearing from the fields.”

The audio distorted again, and Fluttershy hurried over to the terminal and tapped at it a bit. “It was stored in the transmit buffer. Never sent, and the power loss heavily degraded it. I think I can get a little bit more…” With a last keypress, the audio came back, slightly clearer.

“...predators on this planet! The surveys...big mistake…get away from...ourselves.”

The Lieutenant fretted a bit, saying, “It looks like there’s only a little more, at the end.”

“...in the mines...taste good. ...taking ponies with me...weaponry. ...what’s left of our dead…damned monsters.”

With a final squeal, the audio cut off.

Fluttershy stared unseeingly at the terminal, until she heard a dry cough from beside her.

“M...monsters?” Vinyl sounded very young.

Shaking her head, the Lieutenant said, “It was a broken-up recording. We don’t know the full story, here. In fact, we barely know any of it, and we won’t know more until we move on.” She tapped at the terminal for a moment. “I’m setting up a staged reopening of the doors up to the main communications bay. Sergeant, please proceed according to protocol for unknown threats.

As the security team moved off and began reopening the spaceport, Fluttershy looked over to Ensign Scratch.

The Ensign just grinned, perhaps a little too hard. “Ready for action, Ma’am!”

~~~

Applejack stared in the steam rising off her cup of coffee with a far off glassy look in her eyes. Lost in thoughts, miles away and years ago. Wondering if she’d made the right decision, remembering the mare she’d met back then.

“Bit for your thoughts?”

The orange pony blinked, startled, and looked up to the speaker, “Hey Rare, just thinkin’ about the mission.”

The first officer hummed and nodded her head, “I admit, it’s been on my mind as well.”

Applejack raised an eyebrow and pulled a face, “So, I wasn’t the only one with doubts about it.”

Rarity’s like curled up into a smile and shook her head, “You misunderstand, I would worry no matter who you’d sent down there… But I don’t think you made the wrong choice. You saw a potential in her, and, well, I think that is one of your gifts.”

Applejack nodded with a slight frown, considering the other mare’s words. “But ya still worry?”

“Oh yes, anything could happen down there.”

~~~

The wide, interlocked double doors slid open with a gentle swoosh, revealing the command and control room for the Starport. A simple room with a central display hub and a dozen different consoles around the periphery, it might have been a tad cramped when fully staffed. Cold Case peered through the emergency lighting, then slowly crept inside, but it was as empty as the rest of the port had been. The rest of the away team filtered through the door.

"Ensign Scratch, please check for anything useful in the core colony utilities. I'll look over comms." Fluttershy moved to a terminal and called up basic diagnostics and any records of the system layout. The main antenna was over a mile away, atop a hill that overlooked the city, and diagnostic logs showed it operational up until four weeks ago…then, no response.

Vinyl cleared her throat. "The diagnostic wireless mesh is still mostly working, but it looks like there's a bunch of breaks…mostly around the outside of the city, but there's minimal redundancy, so it was enough to cut the bulk of the city off from the primary reactor and the solar field." She tapped a few buttons, then added, "It looks like the few places that have power are getting it from the emergency reactors in the shelters."

The Lieutenant nodded. "Okay. The antenna and transmitter seemed to be working, but then the link just disappeared." She sighed, and shook her head. "There's very little exposure on the lines, but it looks like the same cost-savings may be the problem. All of the backup lines run through the same conduit as the main."

With a grimace, Vinyl muttered, "So there's a single point of failure…"

"Yes." Her eyebrows rose. "There's a power and data junction in the maintenance tunnels below us. I think…" She tapped a few buttons, and a hatch slid open to one side. "There, maintenance access. I'm going to head down and take a look…maybe I can patch it, or at least get in contact with the shelters. Vinyl, please stay here and try to route power a little better--there’s no reason for the shuttle to be powering the entire port, and we might need it later...”

She turned to leave, then blinked as Cold Case stepped in front of her to peek through the hatch first. He looked back and called out, “March, Time, you stay here. Attire, you’re with us.”

Fluttershy waited for the two security ponies to precede her, then glanced back to Vinyl and gave her a nod before moving on.

The hatch led to a narrow, dimly lit corridor that had obviously not seen use in a while. A cloud of dust rose up from each hoofstep, slowly permeating the air within and making her glad for her breather. After only a few meters, a slight turn opened up to the right, and she called ahead, “This is it. Stairs down to the utility level.”

Cold Case glanced back, the beam from his neck-mounted flashlight wobbling, then waved Crimson into the stairwell. He pulled a small tube from one of the pockets on his red peytral, then bit it and twisted slightly. With a soft crack, the tube began to emit a bright blue-white light. He dropped it at the junction before he noticed the Lieutenant watching. “Ah...just in case, ma’am.” He moved on towards the stairs.

Fluttershy peered down at the glowing tube, then glanced around, down the dark, dusty corridors. With a shiver, she moved on.

The stairwell was surprisingly well lit, as Crimson had been busy, dropping his own glow tubes on every landing. She found herself grateful, as the steep metal stairs were hard enough to safely navigate when lit. They descended several flights, until the minimal noise of the deserted port above had faded away. Despite her generally ground-loving nature, Fluttershy found her pegasus instincts making her sweat at the feeling of bedrock all around.

Finally, they reached another hatch. Crimson Attire was looking off to the side, where the stairs continued further down. “What’s lower than the utility level?”

With a dubious look, Fluttershy responded, “I don’t know. It wasn’t on the schematics.” She squinted downwards. “The walls look more natural down there...maybe it goes into a preexisting cave?”

“Whatever the case, we’re where we need to be.” Cold Case already had the manual release to the hatch in his hoof, and with a jerk, the door slid open a few inches.

Crimson looked through the door as the Sergeant pulled it open, then nodded. “Clear.” He paused. “...Do you smell something?”

The other two sniffed gently at what should have been pure, filtered air coming from their breathers, then Fluttershy nodded. “Ozone.”

With a few more minutes of travel down even dustier corridors, as well as tunnels through the rock itself, they drew into a slightly more open, domed room. Therein, they found the source of the ozone: the sparking remains of what had once been the starport’s main power conduit.

“Well, ponyfeathers. I guess we can rule out accidental damage.”

Fluttershy nodded absently as she examined the wreckage. The light, fenced cage which had surrounded the junction had been ripped open, the door hanging from a single hinge. Inside, it appeared the hoof-thick power conduit had been ripped apart, a good half-meter segment of it completely gone. The communications panel was in no better shape, with entire chunks of circuit boards broken off, and fiber optics shredded and missing. She huffed, then carefully moved into the cage, staying on the comms side. “I’m going to see if there’s any way I can patch into either side…”

“Careful ma’am, there’s a lot of voltage going through those lines, with that damag--”

“I know, Crimson, but we’ve got to find out what happened to the ponies here. That means trying to get a comm link up,” Fluttershy explained as she stepped closer to the frayed end of the comm line, a datapad in hoof.

She hesitated and turned, “Crimson?” Her eyes scanned behind her, “Cold, where’s Crimson?”

Cold Case took a sudden step back and he scanned the room for threats, he hadn’t heard anything, and yet… and yet the other pony was gone. “Ma’am, he’s… he’s not here. We need to move, now!”