The message had returned to the Starflier in mere hours.

++Agent Valkyrie

Observe and monitor situation as instructed. Do not terminate the mission, yet.++

The pony read it, quickly deleting the directive off her terminal. The instructions were clear.

Back on the bridge, captain Vector Thrust was staring at a dead and barren world on the monitor in front of him.

“That’s our target sir.” one of his bridge officers said.

He had been reading about it in the mission logs from the day they set off. The world had been designated Llamrei. At least by higher ups. It was a strange planet indeed. Preliminary data from astral scans back on the closest colony with the capability to observe it was scarce at best, it always was. It had the lowest classification though.

Dead World.

The captain had come across very few of these in his time, they were extremely hard to colonise. He knew the ship would be here for an extended stay.

“So tell me officer, why are we at a dead world?” he asked, he knew the reason but he wanted to see if his crew had read the mission log as closely as he had.

“Well...to colonise it sir.” came the reply.

“Of course, but why this one? Anyone?” he asked the entire bridge crew. After a moment of hesitation another crew member piped up.

“It’s a link.”

“Very good.” was all Vector replied. They were right. Llamrei represented an opportunity to set up a link between two more developed colonies. Jump gates were all very well but they did have a maximum range. The two colonies sat too far apart to link via one gate. By luck, Llamrei was at a point between the two where they could build two gates on the edge of the system it occupied. The system itself was rather unremarkable, a few mineral deposits in asteroid fields and some other planets with little value on them. Llamrei had been chosen because it was positioned best to accommodate construction crews for the new gates.

“Move the ship into position, I will start the command sequence for our core…” Vector said, flipping open a small console in his chair and entering the command code. The screen displayed the following:

Target Marked. Initiate? Y/N

A crew member gave the captain a nod indicating they were in position and without a second's hesitation, Vector hit the Y.

Down below, Starflier - the core herself noted a change.

The antenna like device hooked up to her horn suddenly clamped down harder than it had been before. She tried jostling her body a little, for all the good it did. She had no doubt about what was about to happen though, they had arrived at the target colony.

A surge of magic, not willingly powered pushed out from her horn. Starflier almost screamed, it felt like something was sucking out her magic from her. At first, it was slightly painful. The magical discharge taken from her against her will was a shock to her system. Writhing agony took hold as the gigantic pony struggled and shifted her head from side to side in her bloated neck trying to break free but to no avail. She was just about to give up and embrace the pain when she had an epiphany.

‘Stop struggling you silly mare, let it go and embrace it, it will be so much easier…’ a voice in her head said to her. She decided to oblige. Putting some semblance of wilfulness behind the spell discharge.

As she did, she felt the pain reduce substantially. It was still uncomfortable but her gigantic body with increased magical output could easily take it if she willingly cast instead of having the magic taken from her. Quickly Starflier decided that if this was her fate, she may as well embrace as much of it as she could.

Back up on the bridge, Vector watched as the magical discharge was directed to the planet below from the ship. It seemed their core was cooperating, at least he hoped so. It was always so much easier when they did. The ones that struggled often caused problems, he had hoped Starflier had gotten past the struggle now.

It was never an immediate change, colonising a world took weeks, months or more depending on the strength of the magic used and just how naturally far along a planet might have got in supporting life. With Llamrei being a dead world he estimated they might be here for a few months. Nothing was happening on the planet below, yet.

“Lock us in geosynchronous orbit and make sure the beam is maintained for twelve hour bursts per day as specified in the mission log. Twelve hours on, twelve hours off to let the core recharge and cool.” Vector said to his crew. “I’m sure you all know having looked at the mission log dead worlds are a tough nut to crack but this one is too important due to its position. Although we don’t know how long it will be before the colony is ready, construction crews for the gates will be arriving via other ships in three months. Let's hope by then they’ve got something more than a barren husk of a planet to work from.” Vector said, the crew turning back to their stations when he was done to monitor various instruments.

Right now Vector was hungry, there was little more he could do unless a crisis arose aboard the ship. He decided he would make his way to his quarters and have some food brought to him for a few hours before returning to the bridge. “Contact me if you need me, or we have any anomalous readings either internally or externally.” he said, leaving the crew to do their work. There was another reason they were in the system of a dead world. Something else here had piqued the curiosity of command. The captain himself had a mission to attend to that was for his senior staff only which he’d get on tomorrow. His crew would be told he was off on a standard system scout but it was much more than that.

Preliminary scans of the system had picked up an extremely large metallic structure orbiting one of the other planets in the system far from the position of the Starflier. The captain's private log had designated as per directive in these situations he took himself and a two more senior officers along with them to investigate the object.

All he could gleam from the report was very minor details which he had read over again and again.

ADDITIONAL: Large metallic UFO identified orbiting third planet. Item appears dormant. UFO designated Glashtyn for mission purposes. Five to six miles long, small portions of debris around main superstructure. Unidentifiable markings on outer body. Structure appears ancient. Age uncertain, decaying orbit places it at least five thousand years old or more.

ACTION: Captain and two officers to investigate. Findings to be reported back immediately to command. Do not board object unless absolutely necessary. Command classifies this as a class ten artefact. Confirmation of object and further scans will determine next action.

All objects found whilst colonising systems that were deemed ‘out of place’ had an artefact class. Ten was the highest. Vector mused on it, this meant they had no idea what it was or it was something so amazing they wanted very badly to get their greedy hooves on it. From the details he gleaned from the poor description it was either an orbiting space station or some kind of ship. Dormant always gave him pause to be a little worried, ancient and abandoned technology from other races was considerably rare but could be powerful. It was well established by now Equestria was not the only space faring race. They were just the current ones. At least this was know to staff higher up the chain, it was kept out of public knowledge and the strict use of jump gates etc meant that it was almost impossible for regular shipping to come across anything alien. As for the aliens themselves. They just seemed to have just...vanished. But sometimes, things like this cropped up on missions, Vector was never a fan of the total unknown.

Vector put his mind to rest with a meal, the investigation of whatever it was floating out there for thousands of years could wait until tomorrow. One more day and a few more meals wouldn’t change anything.