There’s a little something to be said about radio when it comes to an abandoned colony world literally light years away from civilization. First off, it might as well be magic. When almost everypony who knows anything about how technology works dies in the first five years after losing contact with your homeworld, you’re not leaving a lot of knowledge to be passed on to those who come later. Second, when the only thing resembling a government entirely collapses in that time, and ponies are killing each other over manufactured goods and resources because there’s nothing to stop them, you kick civilization in the balls and it keels over faster than you can blink. Now, with nopony left who knows how the old technology of Equestria works, and no government to hold the fracturing pieces of civilization together to try and train somepony new to figure it out, how hard do you think it is for the survivors of the apocalypse to scrape together enough knowledge and know-how to repair an ancient satellite dish and actually get it to work? Nothing short of a miracle, if you ask me.

You know what they say about the best of times and the worst of times?

In hindsight, I think that’s the point when I should have realized that we’d all just doomed ourselves.

But that wasn’t on my mind, nor anypony else’s, as the room beeped at us. Everypony simply stood in mute shock at what they were hearing, frozen in place, as the sounds of a world we thought long dead were played before us.

“Stars above,” Nova murmured, her eyes fixed on the display in front of her. It pulsed white with every little beep, and a little white square blinked in the corner of a text box, accompanied by strings of code I couldn’t make any sense of. By the look on Gauge’s face, he had no idea what it was supposed to mean either.

Thankfully, there was one pony who wasn’t star struck like everypony else. Stardust took one look at the display on Nova’s screen, looked around the room, and stomped his hooves. His enormous Clydesdaleian hooves (really that was the only explanation for his size) thundered on the metal grates, snapping everypony out of it. Being close to ground zero, I jumped and flattened my ears, which offered me some respite from his booming voice, which immediately followed his hoof and rattled the teeth in my jaw. “Well? Are we going to stand here and listen to the birdies, or are we going to figure out just what we’re hearing?”

Murmurs filled the room, so I assumed that he had his intended effect. At my left, Nova shook her head and poked at the screen in front of her. “Right. It… It looks like some sort of automated hail. The right ascension and declination measurements for the…” she peered at a clock on the far side of the room, “twenty-fourth of August, at thirteen thirty-nine indicate that the point of origin is…” Her voice caught in her throat, and she wiped her muzzle with the tip of a wing. “Equus?”

A rising buzz filled the air, and I fought really hard to keep my hooves still. Could it be? Could we really be hearing from Equus? After all this time?

But Stardust shook his head. He rested his forelegs on the back of Nova’s chair and hummed as he looked at her screen. “No, it couldn’t be from Equus,” he said, deflating my hopes in a single sentence. “That would mean that the FTL beacons are still functional after more than two centuries of abandonment to cosmic weathering. It’s also not planetary in origin; the signal isn’t distorted from distance, it’s still clear.”

“So whatever it is, it’s close,” Nova said, furrowing her brow. Gauge and I shared confused and concerned looks with each other from opposite sides of the white pegasus. Close?

“Local system,” Stardust said, nodding. “Meaning that we’re likely hearing from a probe.”

“Or a spacecraft?” Nova asked, tipping her head back to look up at her father.

Stardust chuckled and tousled Nova’s mane, at least until she ducked away. “Don’t get your hopes up, kiddo. Focus on what we know.”

“Right.” Nova’s hooves danced across the holoscreen, and I saw a big ‘HAILING’ display across the middle. “Attempting to establish communications.”

A gargantuan hoof massaged the little mare’s shoulder. “Good. Don’t forget to put it up on the big screen so everypony can see.”

A few more button presses from Nova was all it took to do so. At the front of the room, placed against the wall, two metal bars arranged parallel to each other began to glow. They were laser displays, and I really only knew that because I had to fabricate parts to repair one of them once. Once the displays had warmed up, they shot beams of white light at each other, which began to contort and produce an image. It was a little fuzzy (I’m sure half of the lenses on those lasers are covered in dust and ash), but it worked, and soon Nova had a copy of her holoscreen on display at the front of the room for everypony to gawk at.

Yes, I mean gawk. At least, that’s what I was doing.

Within seconds of being displayed up front, the big ‘hailing’ message had disappeared, along with the beeping that had been filling the room. It plunged the room into a deathly silence, save for the quiet chatter of the machinery in the back and the hum of SCaR’s thrusters, and I found myself holding my breath.

And then… it happened.

The machines in the back of the room whirred to life with a feverish pitch, and a flexible strip of glass began to enter one large machine from the top and exit from the bottom with little etches decorating its face. Matching the machines beat for beat, noise for noise, the laser displays at the front of the room began to spew out text:

>>>DATA TRANSMISSION RECEIVED

>>>SECURING ENSA SATCOMM UPLINK…………100%

>>>LOCAL TIME: [24.08.0195 1339]

>>>TRAVEL TIME: 269 YR 3 MO 17 DA

>>>WARNING! INTEGRITY 31%

>>>INITIATE EMERGENCY FILE BROADCAST…………100%

>>>DOWNLOADING FILE…………

“Hold on,” I said, reading the message again, then a third time, and a fourth time to make sure I was seeing this right. “This thing’s been travelling for two hundred and sixty-nine years?”

“I’m amazed it even works after that long,” Gauge said, shaking his head. “ENSA built all of their toys to last.”

I cocked my head to the side. “ENSA?”

“The Equestrian National Space Agency,” Nova answered for him, without taking her eyes off of the screen. “And if this thing was launched almost two hundred and seventy years ago…”

Stardust leaned in and stroked his chin. “It was launched near the beginning of the Silence.” He shook his head. “Equestria must’ve launched this right before everything went dark. But why?”

“Wait,” I said, and I even held up a hoof for emphasis. “Wasn’t the Silence only two hundred winters ago?”

“Winters, yes,” Stardust said. “The Auris calendar year is longer than Equus, because it takes longer for our planet to orbit the sun. Two hundred and seventy years on Equus is roughly two hundred winters for us.”

I guess that made sense. I wasn’t used to thinking of the universe as different planets going through life in different rhythms. All I knew was Auris, and that’s all I’d ever know, no matter how much I wished otherwise.

The screen decided to change at that moment, catching us all by surprise. For a second, all we saw was a blank, white rectangle at the front of the room, occasionally flickering or pulsing as ancient technology still tried to perform to standard so many years later. We collectively held our breaths, twenty nerds, a half dozen mechanics, a machinist, and a drone (though I doubt it cared), until the screen flickered again, and more words appeared:

>>>FILE DOWNLOADED

>>> ENCRYPTION LEVEL: ONYX STAR

>>>POWER SUPPLY: 63%

>>>SIGNAL STRENGTH: ADEQUATE

>>>PINGING STATIONS…………

That seemed to get some nervous whispers among the techies present. Even Nova had a worried, almost haunted frown on her muzzle. Behind her, her dad swallowed hard and took a step back, his wings moving at his sides. I’d learned from Nova that it was a sign of anxiety.

It definitely didn’t make me, the clueless forgemare, feel any better.

“What… what does that mean?” I asked, looking between them and the screen for answers, and finding none. I gently tapped Nova on the shoulder and raised an eyebrow. “Well?”

Nova licked her lips before responding. “Almost all files that Equestria used to send to Auris had some level of encryption on them, with ‘White Lily’ being the weakest, and ‘Onyx Star’ being the strongest.” She leaned back in her chair and began chewing on her feathers. “What could they have sent that’s that important?”

“Forget that,” Stardust said, gesturing to the last line on the screen. “What’s this about pinging stations?”

“Well, Blackwash was a listening outpost a long time ago, right?” Gauge asked. We all turned to him as he elaborated. “It wouldn’t make much sense in having a station like this if it didn’t need to send what it heard somewhere else.”

“Then where are they?” I asked, frowning at the screen. “Are they even around? Is there anything left?”

Now, simply waiting a few seconds would’ve given me the answer I wanted, or at least shed some light on this mystery. But it’s important to note that at the time, Blackwash was the only thing I knew. As far as I was concerned, Auris was this mountain, and Blackwash was its sole city. I wasn’t a pegasus, so scaling down the side of the mountain wasn’t practical, but more importantly, I’d never seen another town, settlement, or whatever. The only ponies I knew were ponies from Blackwash, and even though we’d occasionally get radio signals from elsewhere on the planet, we never had anything physical to associate them with. Blackwash was alone, but we were safe, and as I’d soon learn, our isolation wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

Instead of answering, Nova merely pointed, and I swung my head from them to the screen to see that it’d already given me the answer.

>>>PINGING STATIONS…………100%

>>>INSTALLATION ICB77-1: RESPONSE RECEIVED

>>>INSTALLATION CDL01-Y: RESPONSE RECEIVED

>>>INSTALLATION BGX37: RESPONSE RECEIVED

>>>INSTALLATION BMR9A: RESPONSE RECEIVED

>>>INSTALLATION SFR04-T: RESPONSE RECEIVED

>>>INSTALLATION HKN19: RESPONSE RECEIVED

I can’t tell you how useful a map of Auris would’ve been right about now. Sadly, I think the maps we might’ve once had were used as kindling decades ago. Much more concerning at the moment were the ‘response received’ messages displayed on screen. I didn’t know exactly what they meant, or what we might have done, but a bad feeling settled in my gut. Remember how I said we were lucky to be isolated from the rest of Auris?

But I’m getting ahead of myself. All any of us knew right now was that somehow, for some reason, our little mountain home had just sent a greeting to the rest of Auris, and got six responses.

Then the screen changed again, and the words appeared at an even more frantic pace than any of the previous messages:

>>>WARNING!!! ATTEMPTING TO ACCESS ENCRYPTED FILES!!!

>>>ENCRYPTION LEVEL: ONYX STAR

>>>LOCKING FILES…

>>>OVERRIDE: EOH PROTOCOL DUSK

>>>EMERGENCY OVERRIDE INITIATED

>>>ROUTING EMERGENCY FILE BROADCAST

>>>FILES DOWNLOADED: 7/7

>>>BROADCASTING FILES…………100%

>>>ACTIVATING GPS…………

>>>ERROR!!! COULD NOT CONNECT TO SATELLITES

>>>ACTIVATING WISPR COORDINATE TAG…………100%

>>>BROADCASTING DISTRESS FREQUENCY 27.065MHZ

>>> FAFA | E | 36-J

By this point, I was getting sick of stunned silences. We all waited what felt like an eternity for the screen to change, too shocked to start speaking again just in case this little probe somewhere in our solar system decided to send us any more messages. But after one long, tense minute, the screen hadn’t changed. Whatever Equestria had wanted to say to us, they’d said it.

I came here expecting answers, and instead I’d gotten a million more questions. It was more than a little frustrating, and more than a little frightening.

“I take it nopony else knows what that all means,” I murmured, unable to look away from a dead world’s confusing last message to its daughter. The more I tried to make sense of it, the more confused I got. At least steel was never this confusing. I decided I liked the simple life of a machinist compared to solving the riddles of an era long gone.

“Whatever it means, I know one thing for certain,” Gauge said, sitting on his rear and crossing his forelegs as he stared up at the screen. “There’s a broadcaster somewhere in this facility, and Equestria’s little message turned it on. Twenty-seven megahertz is in the high frequency range. Those are the ones that can reflect off of the ionosphere, and since Auris has a really strong one, there isn’t a lot of distortion when they do.”

“So… what?” I asked, holding my hooves out. “So Blackwash is sending a distress signal that’s bouncing around the planet?”

“That’s the general gist of it,” he said. He rubbed his muzzle with his hoof (I’m not sure if he actually liked the taste of grease or if he’d just gotten used to it) and frowned. “Basically, Blackwash is sending out a distress signal, and it’s in the appropriate bandwidth to cover the entire planet. If there are ponies listening at the right frequency, then they’ll hear us for sure.”

“That frequency’s what the military used to use for all of their communications across Auris,” Stardust interjected, pointing to the number on the screen. “If ponies have taken control of any other stations like this one, then undoubtedly they’d have that number, too.”

I thought about this for a second, and what I heard was equal parts exciting and terrifying. “So what you’re saying is that almost everypony with a radio knows we’re here now.”

“Right. And these stations—wherever they are—know more specifically that we’ve made contact with something from Equestria,” Stardust said. “If there’s anypony there, they’ll want to know what we heard.”

“But what did we hear?” Nova asked, and I was happy I wasn’t the only one asking questions. “FAFA? E 36-J? What does that all mean? And what about the broadcasting files part? Did it… send files to the other stations it contacted?”

Stardust gently massaged his hooves on Nova’s shoulders. “It must be a code of some sort,” he said, frowning at the screen. “Whatever was in that probe overrode its own encryption, but the message is still in code.” He looked over his shoulder at a pair of techies at a desk behind him, and pointed with his wing. “Go see if you can find any old codebooks. Maybe they’ll shed some clues on this mystery.”

The two techies both nodded and trotted away, heading towards the back of the room. Stardust turned around, only for Gauge to be looking up at him. “What should we do? It doesn’t look like the signal’s going to send anything more.”

Stardust thought for a moment, then stood up straight to address the room. “Okay, everypony, listen up,” he said, his loud voice immediately silencing several hushed conversations. “What happened here today stays in this room, you understand? The rest of Blackwash doesn’t need to know about what we heard today. In fact, don’t tell them that we heard anything. If they ask, just tell them that we got the dish up and running, alright?”

A jumbled chorus of yes’s answered him, and he nodded. “Take the rest of the day off. We’re not going to make any progress until we’ve found some codebooks, and even then, I need to think about what we just heard. We did good work today.” He smiled and brushed a hoof against his chest. “We’re another step closer to unraveling the mysteries of the universe.”

That got a good chuckle out of the crowd, and he dismissed them with a wing. As the techies began to filter out of the room, his expression turned serious, and he nodded to Gauge. “Find where the broadcaster is and shut it off. I don’t want this to paint a target on our backs.”

Gauge nodded and stood up. “Right. I’ll take care of it.”

“Remember, an outpost as important as this one likely has a backup broadcaster, if not an array in triplicate.”

“I’m aware,” Gauge said with a little smirk. “Leave the greasework to the greasers. I’ll have it shut down in no time.” He whistled, and SCaR chirped from across the room before whooshing over to his side. Then, turning to Nova, he leaned in and pecked her lips. “I’m proud of you.”

Nova tittered and wrapped her hooves around his neck. “All in a day’s work. Sorry that you have to clean up after our mess again.”

Gauge shrugged. “It’s my job,” he said, and they kissed again. I couldn’t help but share a look with Nova’s father, who simply stood there, shaking his head.

“Daddy’s right behind you, Nov,” he said, placing his hoof on her shoulder. Nova just laughed it off, and with one last wave, the two lovebirds separated to do their jobs.

When Gauge disappeared into the bowels of the outpost, brainstorming with SCaR about where to look, Nova shook her dad’s hoof off and stood up. She fluttered her wings to raise high enough to kiss Stardust’s cheek, and she smiled like an innocent filly. “I’m gonna get lunch started,” she said, nuzzling his shoulder, the tallest part of him she could reach when standing on four hooves. “You’re invited too, Ember,” she added, turning to me.

Sadly, I had to raise a hoof and shake my head. “Sorry, but I’ve got plans with Mom. She’s probably wondering where I am, too. I just kinda ran off when Gauge came to get me.” I winced, feeling a ghost pain in my cheek, and absentmindedly ran a hoof over the already-scarring wound. Stabil-Ice was some pretty neat stuff. “Maybe another time?”

It was enough to satisfy Nova, even if she let loose a disappointed sigh. “Alright. Another time then.” She waved a wing, adding a quick “See you later!” before turning around and trotting out the door.

That left just me and Stardust in the room, and I nodded to him. “I should probably get going,” I said, smiling and hitting his (tall) shoulder. “It was nice to see you again.”

To my surprise, a big, shaggy hoof blocked my path. Confused, I looked up at him, and was surprised by the seriousness in his face. “Ember,” he said, in a voice that immediately betrayed his concern. “You were trying to join the militia, right?”

That was an odd question. “Well… yeah,” I said, furrowing my brow. “I’ve just never really had the time. And Mom’s always saying that I need to focus on the forge, so I haven’t officially signed up.”

Stardust nodded, and he looked back at the screen, which was still displaying the last bit of the probe’s message. “Why don’t you go out to the range tomorrow and talk with Brass Casing. He’ll get you signed up.”

I blinked and cocked my head to the side. “Sir?”

Stardust merely placed his hoof on my shoulder (making me stagger backwards) and pursed his lips. “Between you and me, Ember, I have a really bad feeling about this.” I had to refuse the urge to tell him that made two of us. “It doesn’t hurt to be prepared.”

With that vague explanation, Stardust took his hoof off my shoulder, nodded, then turned around and left the building, leaving me all alone in the heart of ground zero.