"Tell me again why I'm doing this for you, Sis?"

Stellar was standing in Twilight's casting room within the Crystal Tree Castle of Friendship, as Twilight was getting ready to cast a new variation of a spell she'd been working on: a very long-ranged teleport spell. "Because you said you didn't want anypony else finding themselves in a situation that they might not be able to handle." Twilight reminded Stellar as she stood inside a circle of protection, outside the casting area.

"Oh, yeah." Stellar remarked. "Think you can get it right this time?" She asked, a little snarkily.

"Hey! The spell worked the last time we tried it, it just... went further than we thought." Twilight rebutted Stellar's comment. "I know I can get the targeting right this time." She added as she started accessing several mana-storage wells filled with the refined power of her magic.

"Okay." Stellar sighed, her exo-armor the most comfortable thing about the situation, to her mind. The last time Twilight had used the spell, instead of ending up in Griffonia, Stellar had appeared in Zebrica... after travelling two-thirds of the way around Equis. It had taken her a month to get home again, travelling normally-but-covertly, and still Twilight was ready, even anxious, to try again almost immediately. "So why the Moon this time?" Stellar asked as she looked out the skylight at Luna's Moon, which was sitting above them almost at zenith.

"It's a direct line-of-sight teleport, and after Luna took us there last year to investigate the object that had crashed on it, I'm totally familiar with the first site we arrived at on the surface." Twilight reiterated for Stellar. "This spell should get you there using only a fraction of the power Luna used last time, so we can begin to set up a research station there for astronomical purposes."

Stellar sighed and nodded, as she closed her face-guard around her muzzle. Only her visor remained unsealed at that time. "Okay, Twi'. Whenever you're ready." She said, and sealed her visor.

Twilight nodded and powered up the big magic circle Stellar was standing in. Magic arrays appeared around Stellar and began spinning as they charged up to their maximum power.

Three fifteen-year-old fillies, who should have been in bed much earlier, made their way into Castle Friendship that night. "But why do we have to be here this late?" Applebloom asked.

"I need to borrow Twilight's big telescope for a while." Scootaloo answered as they headed for the casting room. "And since the Moon's full tonight, I can get the best shots of the surface."

Sweetie Belle yawned and shook herself. "I just hope she's not busy. She's been so... absent of late, with everything she's been working on."

"Nah. Twilight's totally cool. After all, it's Science!" Scootaloo said with a grin.

The other fillies chuckled at that. Twilight was always cool when it came to them pursuing Science. When they came to the Casting Room doors, without thinking, they shoved the doors open, racing in and shouting "TWILIGHT!"

They barely had time to see the mana-wells glowing a deep purple, the network of arrays around Stellar, with Twilight to one side, before Twilight screamed and everything went purple...

"Almost there..." Twilight told Stellar through the headset on her head, when the doors to the Casting Room slammed open and three voices yelled out "TWILIGHT!" Twilight screamed, her nearly-completed spell flashed into activation as the disrupted feeds from the mana wells flooded the room with purple mana. Twilight's protection circle was lit up, the shield over her glowing a bluish-purple as the shield fought to keep the mana from reaching Twilight. Then, with a huge noise that sounded like a hundred-thousand ponies yelling 'FOOP', the mana vanished. The Casting Room was buffeted as air rushed through the open doors, the only window slamming open as air blasted in to fill the vacuum created by the spell.

Twilight struggled to her feet to find the Casting Room was completely empty. Stellar was gone, of course, as planned, but the couches, the tables, the bookcase, even the air the room had contained... everything had vanished, save for herself and the book she had inside the Protection Circle.

"Oh crap." Twilight said to herself, as she registered in her brain what had just happened. She cancelled the shield around her and quickly moved to the center of the circle, looking about. "No scorching, no residue... the spell worked, but what else happened?" She asked herself. Twilight raced out of the room and headed for her bedroom. "This is Princess, calling Warrior. Princess calling Warrior; come in, Warrior." She said into her headset, but nothing replied save for static. "Not good." Twilight said in a increasingly-worried tone as she entered her room and went up to a jewellery box on her vanity. Opening it, she took out a pendant with a deep-purple gem set in it. Holding it up, she held it close to her and muttered Stellar's name. But the crystal remained dark, instead of lighting up as Twilight expected it to do, indicating Stellar was either dead or beyond its range. Twilight's eyes started to tear up as she realised something had gone horribly wrong, and far worse than last time...

Stellar felt the teleport shift her in time and space, but when it ended, she found herself floating in open space, with no Moon in sight. What was in plain sight, as her helmet lights came on, were three very familiar teenage fillies... who were now exposed to vacuum, her exo-armor's alarms indicating she was surrounded by a quickly-dispersing air pocket. Instantly realising the dangers, Stellar's mind instinctively tapped the mana-storage arrays her armor was equipped with and a massive shield formed, over a kilometre across. Once it was fully-formed, she contracted it down around her, the shield trapping everything within it as it also became stronger. Stellar knew she had barely fifteen seconds before the Cutie Mark Crusaders would start to succumb to exposure to vacuum, so she hurriedly compressed the shield down, trapping all the air particles and compressing them down as well, until her armor registered they were floating in a near-normally-pressured atmosphere.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders had felt the teleport as well, having been teleported several times in their lives. Then the very unfamiliar and horrifying feeling of complete depressurisation hit them all as the air around them dispersed. They managed to not hold their breath as the air raced out of their lungs, and they instinctively closed their eyes as well before their eyeballs could start to freeze. After so many adventures and so many accidents, their survival instincts were finely-honed for many different eventualities as they curled up protectively into balls. Sweetie Belle and Applebloom were trying hard not to throw up as well, their stomachs not used to floating in weightless conditions. Almost before their minds could ask themselves 'what next?', the air thickened up around them and it became warm once again, as Stellar's shield compressed the air back into a viable atmosphere and heated the insides. A large number of objects were bouncing around inside the shield as well, the trio found out, as a book hit Applebloom in the back of the head, sending her spinning. "Hey!" She said, as they opened their eyes and saw what was surrounding them, the shield glowing enough for them to see clearly by its generated light. "Oh buck." Applebloom swore as she saw one of the couches heading right for her.

Sweetie Belle's horn then lit up and she pulled the trio back-to-back, allowing them to fend off objects. They were pushed across the shield sphere as Applebloom caught the couch and it transferred some of its momentum to them. Catching two more of them in Sweetie Belle's magic, the trio held them around them like shields. They used the couches to fend off errant books, vases, tables and even the bookcase, until Stellar could bring everything to a halt within the sphere.

Once everything was settled, Stellar opened her visor and face-guard, to see the Cutie Mark Crusaders peeping out from between the three couches. "You three! What in all of Celestia's abundant power were you thinking, bursting into Twilight's casting room like that?" She demanded. "Hasn't the last six... make that seven times you've done that taught you it is never a good idea to surprise Twilight?"

The looks of contrition on their faces only barely mollified Stellar's anger at them. "Well..." Sweetie Belle started.

"It's just that, it was so late..." Applebloom added.

"We didn't think she'd be casting anything at that time of night." Scootaloo concluded.

Stellar glared at the three, making them cower back behind the couches again. Then she sighed. "Okay, come here." She said in a far-more-calm voice, as her magic gathered the books out of the air and slid them away inside some of her H-S pockets. The trio left the confines of their couch-construct, and Sweetie Belle floated them over to Stellar. Once they were safely tucked up against her, Stellar darkened the shield-sphere so she could look out.

Scootaloo looked about with great interest, then she frowned. "I don't recognise any of these star patterns." She commented.

"Neither do I." Stellar agreed. "But first, we're going to have to do something about you three. My armor can support me out here indefinitely, but you don't have that kind-of protection. And this air is not going to stay fresh for long, let alone protect you from other things..." She started rummaging about inside one of her H-S pockets. "I hope I brought it with me." Stellar said as she searched within the tiny dimensional pocket.

"Brought what?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"I was making Twilight a suit of exo-armor, like mine but more suited for her as a civilian." Stellar explained. "If I brought the helmet with me, we may have a chance of getting you three in a much safer situation much more quickly... Ah, these will help." Stellar said, pulling out a number of clear bags. Inside, the fillies could see the contents looked like breather masks for the oxygen tanks the hospital in Ponyville used. Taking three of them out, she plugged their hoses into certain outlets in her armor's backpack, and put the masks over the fillies' muzzles. "Now, stay close and breathe normally. My armor will provide you with additional oxygen, to make sure you don't suffer from lack of it while I work on something more permanent." Stellar told them.

"Okay, Stellar." The trio replied as Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo stayed tucked under Stellar's armored wings, and Applebloom found herself held onto by Stellar's hind legs.

After ten minutes of searching through several of her H-S pockets, Stellar grinned as she pulled out a bulbous helmet, much more like a sphere than the head-shaped helmet of her own armor. "Good, so glad I didn't leave this behind." Stellar said, more to herself than the C.M.C. "Now, I am going to put this on your heads one at a time." She told the trio. "It's going to do scans of your bodies and get your outer dimensions for it to create new sets of armor for you three. It'll feel tingly as it does so, but don't squirm. You have a limited amount of air-line, so if you drift too far, you'll pull the connections out."

"Okay Stellar." The C.M.C. replied.

"Yeah, we get the idea, Stellar. You don't have to explain it like we were five." Scootaloo groused a little.

Stellar glared at Scootaloo, who fell silent instantly. "When you stop doing things as if you're five years old, and start acting like your proper ages... such as NOT bursting into casting rooms without knocking FIRST... then I might not have to explain things as if you're five years old, Scootaloo." Stellar lectured her and the others sternly. The trio cowered a little more under Stellar's wings and barrel. Then Stellar sighed. "But you're not entirely to blame. Celestia knows I have told Twilight time and time again to lock her door while she's working... and I didn't check to see if it was locked, either. So I guess we're all at least partially to blame."

The fillies were quiet as Stellar slipped the helmet onto Applebloom's head first. "Helmet, scan subject for Vacc-Armor creation. Subject designated 'Applebloom'." Stellar ordered.

"Rojer rojer." The helmet's tinny, monotone voice replied, and Applebloom felt a tingly sensation run over her body as Stellar opened the H-S pocket up and started pulling the couches, the bookcase and the rest of the clutter over and sliding them inside.

"What are you doing?" Sweetie Belle asked Stellar.

"Well, apart from cleaning up the space in here, I also need raw materials to help with the construction of your suits." Stellar explained. "This is a portable alchemical transmutation lab Twilight and I came up with after one long week of working together. It'll help in manufacturing your suits while we wait."

"Cool!" Sweetie Belle replied, grinning. "That sounds like a really handy thing to have."

"Oh, it is." Stellar agreed, grinning back at Sweetie Belle. Once everything was stowed away inside the H-S pocket, Stellar opaqued the shield-sphere again and rested.

Scootaloo then spoke up. "Stellar... do you have any idea where we are?" She asked hesitantly.

Stellar sighed. She'd been hoping that that question wouldn't have come up this quickly. "At the moment, Scoots... No." She said honestly. "I know of several things I can try to get a better idea of where we are, but for now, I need the mana arrays on my armor to fully recharge before I try them, and their mana is needed to build your suits first. Once they're done, then I'll see if I can't locate where we are."

"Okay." Scootaloo replied.

Eventually Stellar had all three fillies scanned, and put the helmet away inside the Alchemistry 'pocket'. She passed the time with the C.M.C. by handing out concentrate vege-bars and chocolate-coated muesli bars from her supplies, and there were bottles of apple juice to be had as well. "How far do ya think we're away from Equestria?" Applebloom had asked.

Stellar had been trying to map the stars she was familiar with, from her time with Luna and Twilight on the Moon. "Well... I think I recognise at least two prominent stars we can see from Equestria." She pointed them out to Applebloom. "The trouble is, I really need one more to begin estimating how far we've gone, and to get a much more accurate fix, six definitely-identified objects need to be found." She explained. "What doesn't help is that astronomy's been a mis-labelled and somewhat unrecognised area of study for literally centuries. Most of the little we know comes from the time of the Equusese Empire, and that was nearly ten thousand years ago. Discord did his best to scramble everything when he took over the first time, and it's left us with a world that operates unlike any other we have theories about. Luna even has to 'paint' the positions of the stars onto the nebula-shield-barrier that surrounds our system, or else we wouldn't even know they're there of a night." Stellar shook her head. "Plus Discord doesn't seem to be able, or he's unwilling, to undo what he did back then."

"Why's that?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"Well, from what I know of him and what he did, I think it's because he upset so much during that time, that if he tries to undo it even by a little, the entire system's stability could come crashing down like that house-of-cards exercise I taught you to help refine your control of your magic, Sweetie." Stellar explained further. "It's a case of: 'If we start it, we might not be able to stop it'. So he's just not bothering to try and fix it, for the fear everything would collapse totally."

"That's sad." Applebloom said, looking depressed.

"Yeah, I know." Stellar agreed in a soft voice.

It took on twenty minutes for a chime to sound from within the alchemistry lab-pocket Stellar had with her, and she took a helmet similar to the one she'd used to scan the Crusaders from inside. This one had Applebloom's cutie mark on the visor-guard and the sides of it. "Okay, Applebloom, come here." Stellar said, as she released her hold on the teenage filly. Applebloom slid about around Stellar, making sure not to tangle the air line to her mask, until she was out in front of Stellar. Stellar held Applebloom in her magic as she took the mask from the teenager's muzzle, slid the helmet over her head and orientated it properly. "Right. Now to see if this works." She said as she pressed the cutie mark on the forehead-guard.

As they watched, a suit of unusual armor slid out from the helmet and locked around Applebloom. It was in white with glowing strips all over it, but it wasn't as streamlined as Stellar's exo-armor. It had a bigger backpack, but without the big thruster units Stellar's had, and there were lots of pockets and tether points around the exterior. Smaller clusters of manoeuvring thrusters sat at strategic points over the outside, and the visor was much larger than the one Stellar's helmet was fitted with, it leaving most of Applebloom's face open to view. "Wow! This feels pretty comfortable." Applebloom commented as she wiggled and twisted her body, getting used to the suit around her.

"I'm glad it fits so well, Applebloom." Stellar replied, smiling.

Over the course of forty more minutes, Scootaloo's and Sweetie Belle's suits were delivered and after only some minor adjustments for Scootaloo's wings, all three of them were looking like true astro-ponies. "This is great!" Scootaloo exclaimed as she tried free-manoeuvring in her suit, getting used to the thruster arrays and how to control them. "I can really fly in this suit!" Stellar was showing Sweetie Belle how to do the same, while Applebloom was practising as well.

When she felt they were proficient enough to handle basic manoeuvring, Stellar called the trio over. "Okay. I want you to close your visors up and seal your suits." She told them. "You won't be able to talk to each other when you're sealed, unless your helmets are touching or your radios are on, which they will always be since it's an automatic function at this point." She explained to the trio. "Once you're used to being sealed in, I'm going to tether you to me, like you were before, and we'll begin trying to find somewhere to shelter. Your suits are proof against cosmic radiation, but I don't want to chance things for too long out here, since your suits aren't quite as strong as mine is. After all, they're not battle armor, just vacc-suits, really." Stellar smiled at them as they nodded.

Stellar watched them as they closed their visors and sealed their suits, then ran them through the check protocols, including inflating their suits for positive pressure testing, and radio checks, until she was satisfied they were ready to face open space without her force-shield. Once the fillies' suits and her own armor were properly checked-over and the trio were tethered safely to her, Stellar compressed the shield sphere even more, slowly allowing the air it contained to flow into her backpack and be refined and cleaned, until almost all of it had been recycled back into where it could be useful. Most of the nitrogen had been liquefied for use as propellant for her main thrusters, the oxygen being contained for breathing, of course. As the C.M.C. became used to their new suits, Stellar powered up her horn, charging up a seeker spell, until her horn almost was fit to burst. Then she let it fire off, spreading out in a sphere around them at nearly light-speed. If there was anything out there, she'd get a signal return... hopefully at a distance they could reach.

But she was almost sceptical when there was a return after just less than two seconds. It wasn't a large return, like there was a planet or something of good size, but it was a solid surface. 'Maybe it's an asteroid or something like that.' Stellar thought to herself, as she processed the distance and direction of the return. 'It's just on three hundred thousand kilometres away', Stellar worked out, as she orientated herself in that direction. "Okay, you three." She addressed the Cutie Mark Crusaders. "I think I've found something. We're going to be teleporting and travelling fast, so get used to the fact you're going to be feeling the G-forces for the time we're travelling."

"Ready!" The three fillies replied.

"Okay! Here we go..." And Stellar teleported in that direction. While they'd only travelled close to a thousand kilometres, Stellar had changed the direction they'd been slowly drifting in and gained about ten thousand km/hr in that direction. Once she was heading the right way, Stellar fired up the mana thrusters in her backpack, extending her wings to shield Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo from the energy they'd release. Being under her, Applebloom was already protected.

Two kilometre-long jets of super-energised mana-plasma and a stream of nitrogen atoms shot backwards, and they leaped forward, gaining speed exponentially as they travelled. Stellar's inertia-dampening array kept the four travellers from feeling most of the forces of that acceleration, but she knew they'd be travelling for a very long time before they reached any really decent speed. Once they were settled into the acceleration, Stellar charged up and sent out another pulse, this time in a narrow cone towards where the object had been detected. The return was only slightly quicker, but it confirmed what Stellar had felt from the first return: The object was moving, not standing still; and it was travelling roughly perpendicular to their course, not travelling towards or away from them. Adjusting their course using her thrusters and the vectoring vanes from her main thrusters, after nearly an hour Stellar felt she had them on the best intercept course. The object was travelling at a steady fifty-two thousand km/hr and Stellar was making adjustments to bring them eventually on a parallel course to its travel, and to come up ahead of it, so she could slow down gradually and rendezvous with it.

The fillies sat, restless, beside and under Stellar as they moved at what seemed like a very slow pace. "Are we...?" Scootaloo started to ask.

"The first one to say that to me will be left behind and picked up twenty-four hours from now." Stellar quickly interrupted.

Scootaloo looked down at Applebloom, who grinned up at her. Grumbling, the young pegasus fell silent.

Twilight had finally calmed down enough, after ten minutes, to write and send a letter to Luna, since she knew Celestia would not be awake at this time of night. Not wishing to wake Spike either, Twilight lit the special candle made with Spike's scales she kept in her study as a back-up to Spike's ability, and burned the letter with it, sending it on its way. Then Twilight relaxed back on her thinking couch, her mind racing over the figures of her spell as several quills wrote furiously on a number of sheets of paper ...

Luna was resting on her break from Night Court, having had one of the easier nights. The few petitioners had come and been dealt with before her time in the dream realm had begun, and after a short break, a good meal and a rest, she was looking forward to returning to it again.

But then a puff of green smoke whirled into existence before her, and a scroll appeared in green fire, dropping onto the table almost right into the potato salad. Luna smiled, her face also showing curiosity. "How interesting. I did not think Twilight Sparkle would be awake at this time of night." She said to herself as she uncurled the scroll and read it. Her face dropped into a grim frown, though, as she finished the scroll. Rerolling it, Luna secured it again, got to her hoofs and strode out of the dining parlor.

Sticking her head into her aide's office, Luna dropped the scroll on Midnight Azalea's desk. "Midnight! I am headed for Castle Friendship! There has been an incident. Give this to my sister when she awakens, it shall explain everything." Luna told her.

"Of course, Your Highness!" Midnight said as Luna retreated and raced to the closest way out of the castle. Once outside, Luna took to the skies and teleported to Ponyville. Once she was sure Luna was on her way, Midnight unrolled the scroll and saw that it said:

Princess Luna,

This is Twilight Sparkle. We have a small-if-important situation. Stellar was helping me once again with my long-range teleport spell, but this time we were interrupted by the Cutie Mark Crusaders, who burst into my casting room at the very moment of final activation of my spell.

The spell seems to have worked again, but this time it took everything in the room, except for myself and my spell book. The teleport was supposed to have ended up on your plateau on the Moon, a direct-line-of-sight teleport, but I cannot sense them there... and Stellar's tracker pendant can't find her yet, either. I am forced to conclude that, if they actually materialised, it was far further away than I had planned or even anticipated.

The teleport commenced at 11:58:29.362PM and was aimed at the Moon, the arrival point was at 87/34/21 d/m/s ENE and 89/48/32 d/m/s inclination. Could you please check to see if there was a disruption to the Firmament along that trajectory? If they headed out as far as the spell could possibly carry them (I am calculating its maximum range as I write to you), there will be a definite puncture of the Firmament along that trajectory. We might be able to track them if we can locate that puncture. If there is not one, then they must still be inside the Firmament, and we should be able to find them eventually.

Before you ask, I am not truly worried for the Cutie Mark Crusaders, more than I would be normally. They are with Stellar and I trust my sister to protect them and make sure they are safe, no matter what circumstances they are facing. If they were with anypony else... Regardless, I am doing my utmost to locate them and bring them back home.

I await your arrival with suppressed panic and many calculations,

Yours faithfully,

Princess Twilight Sparkle.

Luna appeared over the Crystal Tree Castle and landed on the main balcony, which overlooked the sleeping town of Ponyville. Blissfully unaware of what had occurred that night, the town looked so peaceful, Luna sighed with happiness. She could sense no nightmares or even slightly-troubled sleep from the town's inhabitants, something that the Princess of the Night found most paradoxical. This little town had faced more dangers of terrifying or greater magnitude than anywhere else in Equestria, yet it slept on most peacefully, seemingly untouched by the memories of things horrific. Luna then saw a line of ruby light heading upwards into the sky, seemingly coming from the skylight-dome of one big room. Luna shook her head and headed for the Library's upper entrance.

Twilight looked up as Luna entered from the Library's upper balcony. "Down here, Luna." Twilight said as she rose from her couch.

Luna took off and alighted with perfect grace next to Twilight, who was frowning at the sheets of paper she held in her magic. "Not enough! I need more space!" Twilight said, as she put the paper down and looked at Luna.

Luna smiled at Twilight. "I take it your computations require more area to work on, Twilight Sparkle?" She asked.

Twilight nodded, looking very serious. "A lot more." She confirmed, as a big door opened to one side of the study and eight very large blackboards trundled out, a big box of chalk following.

Luna nodded. "We can talk as you work, Twilight." She told the purple alicorn mare. "So... shall I check the Firmament for you from here?" She asked.

Twilight nodded. "I've marked the course the spell would have taken them on in the Casting Room. You'll find a ruby on the floor in the center of the circle. It's projecting a beam of light along the path I'd chosen to send Stellar on at the time. You can trace it from the roof as well, if that makes it easier to check." Twilight told Luna as she started writing the last figures from the pages on four boards.

"A good suggestion." Luna agreed, and she headed out again. As she landed next to the roof-dome, Luna concentrated her magic along the line indicated by the ruby-light. A surge of blue magic raced off into the sky, following the light-line past where the Moon slowly headed for the west sky and out to the Firmament; the sphere of nebula-dust and gas that Discord had wrapped their system in so very long ago, to keep his 'play-thing' from being disturbed by others.

As her magic reached the point the ruby-light indicated, Luna did find the cloud had a firm puncture in it that glowed purple, and was easily read as Twilight's magic. The puncture hole was very slowly sealing over, but there was no doubt that the spell had taken the four ponies engulfed in it outside of the Equisian system and beyond into deep space. Luna shook her head as she let the visualisation spell slowly move through the puncture. The quartet were now somewhere where Ponies had never been before; not even herself or Celestia had ever left their system in their lifetimes, and what little they knew did not fill them with the urge to go exploring... although Luna had to admit, what they did know of the outside universe came from one source: Discord. That fact alone made her distrust anything he had told them about it before he had been 'reformed' by Fluttershy and the rest of Team Harmony.

Luna snorted as her spell now shot off from the outside of the Firmament as far as she could perceive the returns from it... which wasn't that far, before it had travelled so far that she could no longer perceive any return from it at all. The mana of the spell had dispersed as she lost control of it, but she now knew that the four Ponies caught up in this incident were far beyond any means she or probably even Celestia had of finding and bringing them home. A little disheartened, but still resolute, Luna flew back to the Library balcony and went inside. Until Celestia joined them, she would do all she could to help Twilight work through her weighty calculations.

After nearly six hours of accelerating, coasting, manoeuvring and teleports, Stellar turned around to face the direction they were travelling. She sent out another locator pulse, which came back almost instantaneously. She then fired another type of mana pulse; this one a ball of visible light that shone like a miniature star. It hit something and seemed to splatter, covering the almost-invisible object in a coat of light. "Hang on..." Stellar said, as the shape of the object was revealed to be extremely regular and not at all ripply and rock-like. "That looks suspiciously like some kind-of ship."

"A ship?" All three C.M.C. asked as one.

"What kind-of ship?" Applebloom asked

"A starship, of course." Scootaloo answered.

Stellar chuckled. "You're not wrong either, Scoots." Stellar agreed. She fired her main thrusters again, slowing them down gradually and allowing the ship to catch up to them.

As it came closer, its true size became apparent. "It's huge!" Sweetie Belle stated.

"Yeah, it really is." Stellar agreed. "It's at least a kilometre long, it seems." She added as they slowly drifted back along the ship's length. Stellar then frowned. "And it looks like all the external doors are open, which is very strange." She told them as they came back to the last half of the ship's length, and saw some big bays in the ship's interior... and they were wide open, revealing smaller craft inside them. Stellar matched the ship's speed and moved over until they all entered the big flight bay inside the ship's interior.

"What are those?" Scootaloo asked, pointing to one of the strange craft sitting there.

"They almost look like fighter aircraft." Stellar replied. "But none I recognise." She lowered them to the floor of the bay. "Okay, Applebloom. I'm going to release you. Activate your Personal Gravity Field (PGF) spell and walk out from under me when you land." Stellar instructed Applebloom.

"Rojer that." Applebloom replied as Stellar had coached her and, as Stellar unlatched Applebloom's suit from her armor, Stellar gave her a little push and Applebloom drifted downwards at a faster rate. Applebloom hit the button on the fetlock-mounted control unit, and felt gravity return to her as her hoofs touched down. She quickly walked out from under Stellar, who did the same and touched down. Stellar unhitched Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle and had them land as well. As they stood there inside the bay, which went all the way through the ship from side-to-side, Stellar breathed a sigh of relief. Her face-guard and visor opened, revealing her face was covered by a curved transparent face-plate fitted over where her face looked out of her helmet. A recent addition, it gave her better visibility than the armored face-guard and visor combination, but she didn't think it suited combat, so she rarely used it. But in the ship, visibility was more necessary than ultimate protection, so she now used it to look around as she surveyed where they were.

'We may be a long way from home', Stellar thought to herself, 'but being in a ship will always be safer than being out in open space... provided nopony is shooting at you '. But that didn't seem to be a real problem at that time, and as soon as Scootaloo found a doorway leading into the interior of the ship, they started exploring.

"So, where tha' Hay are they?" Applejack almost demanded of Twilight.

"I don't know yet!" Twilight answered. "And if you don't let me work, I might never figure out how far they could have gone!" She almost growled back at a furious Applejack.

Applejack was about to let fly again, when Rainbow Dash and Rarity moved in front of her and pushed Applejack back. "Let her work, Applejack dearie." Rarity said in a firm voice to Applejack.

"Yeah! Scoots and Sweetie Belle are out there too, remember? We want to know where they are, too." Rainbow Dash added her say to the argument.

"But what's ta say they ain't in real trouble?" Applejack said to them.

Rainbow Dash smirked. "They're always in trouble, A.J. At least Stellar's with them, and they're not on their own."

"Indeed. Stellar is quite capable of not only keeping them in-line, but keeping them alive, if not completely out-of-trouble." Rarity agreed with Rainbow Dash.

Applejack looked uncertain, but eventually nodded. "Yeah, ah guess yer right." Applejack replied, but then looked back at Twilight. "But ah wants ta know how they got caught up in this in tha first place."

Twilight sighed. "I told you three times already. I was casting my new long-range teleport spell on Stellar, and the three of them came bursting into my casting room without knocking. The spell was almost complete when they shouted my name at me and ruined my concentration. The spell activated as the mana-wells flooded the room instead of just the circle, and the spell took everything in the room except for me, since I was in the protection circle."

"And while you may have told the others before, Twilight, this is the first time I have heard of these events from your own lips." Celestia stated as she walked into the Crystal Castle Library's study area, Luna by her side. "Luna has briefed me a little on what had happened, but to hear it from you makes things a little clearer."

Twilight nodded. "I'm sorry to have dragged you to my castle so early, Pri... Celestia, but I'm nowhere near as proficient in Astronomy as either you or Luna are, so any help would be welcome." She told Celestia. "I hardly know anything about what's beyond the Firmament, so I really need your help to locate the point where the spell's power would run out."

Celestia nodded. "I take it you found the course they had taken, Luna?" Celestia asked her sister.

"Yes, Sister. There was a definite and firm puncture in the structure of the Firmament exactly where Twilight pinpointed it would be." Luna smiled. "Her accuracy was most helpful in locating it. We have a definite line to start looking along, once we know how far we have to look."

Celestia looked at the sixteen blackboards Twilight had filled with calculations. "You've certainly been busy, Twilight." Celestia commented.

"Yes. I think I almost have the final calculations... if I can have five more minutes." Twilight said with a hopeful look.

"Then we shall leave you to your work." Celestia replied, as she nodded at Luna, who began herding the other ponies out of the room.

"I think Spike's making breakfast in the Dining Room." Twilight added as they left.

"Then we shall avail ourselves of his hospitality." Luna said back as she and Celestia moved out of the Library, subtly pushing Applejack and the others out before them.

Twilight sighed with relief as the doors closed behind them, and she picked up four pieces of chalk with her magic and traced back to where she had left off working...

As the alicorns and ponies sat, trying to enjoy their breakfast, they were joined by Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy, who were astounded to hear the trio of fillies had vanished. The three older sisters were consoled by their friends and their rulers as they tried to eat. Only when Twilight finally stepped into the dining room did they look interested.

Twilight looked at them as she floated a blackboard and stand in behind her and put it on the floor. "Okay... I've finished my calculations." Twilight told them. "But... the figures are, literally, astronomical." She turned to the board, which had an enormous figure on it. "The spell, as far as I was able to determine, was lacking one controlling element: The C.M.C. interrupted me just before I cast the distance limiter into the spell matrix. This probably means, by the amount of mana the spell drained from the wells, the spell sent them to its maximum distance." She stopped and waited for the others to show they understood what she'd told them.

"So... yer spell sent them out as far as it could, then." Applejack finally said.

"That's right." Twilight agreed.

"And how far was that?" Rarity asked.

Twilight shook her head. "The number... it's beyond any concept of distance even I have ever contemplated." She admitted. "I don't know... if the number even has any meaning, considering how big it is."

"How big is it, Twilight?" Celestia then asked.

"It's... over eleven quadrillion kilometres." Twilight revealed.

"Quad... rillion?" Asked Rainbow Dash in a puzzled tone.

"Wow! That's... really, really big!" Pinkie then stated, to chuckles from some of the ponies there as well as Spike.

Twilight nodded. "As I said, it's so big, it almost defies any true meaning. It's eleven with fifteen zeroes after it. I can barely express it in any way that makes it easily definable..."

"I may have some way to do so." Luna then interjected.

Twilight was surprised, but said "Anything would help, Luna."

Luna nodded. "The fastest speed that has ever been calculated is the Speed of Light." She told the others. "Light travels at 297,600 kilometres per second. That distance is called a 'Light-Second'. If I remember correctly what the astronomers that worked before the Discordian Era had calculated, they had worked out that a good term to be used for distances between stars was a 'Light-Year'. That is a very great distance of 9,385,113,600,000 kilometres, if one uses a Light-Second as its basis."

Twilight's eyes opened as wide as they could have opened, then she turned back to the blackboard and did a quick calculation. "That means... if we used your 'Light-Year' as the base distance measure... they would have reappeared nearly 1206 Light-years away!" Everypony there, including Twilight, were stunned as she revealed the distance the others had been sent.

"So... if they're so far away... can we even do anythin' ta help?" Applejack asked.

Twilight shuddered and hung her head. "I don't know..." She admitted sadly.

Author's Notes:

Hey everypony!

Something I hope will keep people watching this account. I've seen a lot of stories where Ponies get on Starfleet Ships, and the EDF Yamato and others, but very few where they encounter Robotech vessels. This is set a long time after Robotech: Shadow Chronicles, and follows events in that story arc.

By the way, some of Twilight's figures:
Light-second =========== 297,600 km
Light-minute ========= 17,856,000 km
Light-hour ======== 1,071,360,000 km
Light-day ======== 25,712,640,000 km
Light-year ===== 9,385,113,600,000 km
Distance == 11,318,447,001,600,000 km (1206 Light-Years)