She had tapped into their communication channel. She knew what was going to happen. Starflier only had to listen.

“We’re breaching the outer hull now sir.”

“Good, good. Keep it up.”

THUNK.

She heard the hefty door break away as the noise of the cutting beam subsided. It was like music to her ears. As soon as the captain succumbed well...she’d be free.

The Titan was a huge vessel. Captain Vector Thrust had elected to cut into the side of the ship as close to what he could identify as a bridge as he possibly could. They had come in at a corridor, flashlights on they looked for any sign that could point them to where they wanted to go.

“Any thoughts?” he asked.

“Well...we could follow the arrow.” one of his Officers replied. Right in front of them was a giant arrow pointing towards the left. He blushed, grinning and letting forth a nervous laugh.

“Ehehe...yes of course. I’ll lead the way.”

She could hear them making their way through the ship. Vector kept making remarks about the width of the corridor. Apparently whoever designed this vessel hadn’t considered any of the crew would be hugely obese. His pad kept getting wedged between doorways that the others were having to push him through. The mic communications channel kept broadcasting the sound of his fat blubber squishing into the walls.

Eventually though they made it to what they assumed was the bridge. Starflier listened in to the things they noticed. Funnily most seemed to always see the same thing first. The chairs.

“They’re rather small aren’t they?” she heard Vector ask one of the Officers with him.

“Well...I assume whoever flew the ship was a race of thin creatures.” one replied.

“Indeed...and such tiny buttons. I think my hoof covers at least ten on this control panel.” another said. “I think even if we tried to power the ship on we’d struggle. Pressing so many buttons at once might confuse the command computer.”

“You assume it has one?”

“Well of course. Why wouldn’t it?”

“It’s alien technology sir. What we consider a computer could be entirely different. It might have had all of its logical functions controlled by a biological brain that has now died. Might explain why its been sitting idle for so long.”

“Hmmm yes. Look let's see what we can find.”

The communications went silent again for about ten minutes. Starflier could only assume they were poking around various things on the bridge. There was a faint click, then one of the Officers said something.

“Sir? This station here, its active.”

She then heard movement of the ponies converging on the now activated station. Then a short squabble over what to do.

“Look I’m the captain, it’s a station with a screen - much like the ones we use. Just with...smaller buttons. Dusty, you’re the thinnest. If you’re careful I think you can navigate the menu and see if anything makes sense if you press the keyboard with a hoof gently.”

“But sir...we don’t know what it does. This could be something like a navigation station or it could launch all the weapons.”

“Well...we won’t know until we try. The Starflier is far away, she won’t be in any danger.”

“You assume so.”

“Look, just try dammit. Nothing else on this bridge is active. This is the one station that has actually come to life. See if you can find anything.” Vector said with a rather impatient tone. The communications went silent again save for some clicking as Dusty pressed buttons.

Starflier gently hummed to herself a tune of satisfaction. She had tried warning Vector and he had bumbled his way onto the ship anyway with total disregard for it. She knew what was coming, she had seen it before. Thankfully she also knew once the Captain and all the Officers over there were taken care of, command of the ship would be transferred to her as logically she was the next highest ranking pony. All she had to do was wait.

“I think we have something.”

“How can you tell?”

“Well...it looks like logs. I can’t read the language but there’s definitely something that resembles numbers. They’re vastly different from what I assume is the lettering system.”

“Well go for the top one. If whoever built this thing had logical reasoning that should be the latest.”

“Alright.”

On the bridge, the display flicked for a moment and switched to a video recording. In front of their eyes was a creature no pony had ever seen before. From what they could all see it looked dishevelled, even grotesque. Sitting on the chair in the middle of the room hunched over with some sort of appendage holding its head. Then the head came up and small beady eyes stared straight into the camera with a pained look of horror.

“My God, what is that thing?” Vector asked.

“Whatever race built this ship at a guess. It sort of looks like a less hairy monkey…” Dusty said.

“That explains the small buttons. Look, no hooves. It has like...a palm with things sticking out. That must make typing into these keypads super efficient.” one of the other Officers observed. As he finished the figure on the screen started to speak.

“Can you understand it?”

“No...and we can’t translate it either. But I can maybe pick up on a few things...let me listen.” Dusty said.

For a few moments, the figure spoke. As it talked, it clearly became more and more agitated trying to explain what was going on. Expressions of anger, regret and fear clearly marked the face. They weren’t actually too different to ones ponies made. At the end, the figure repeated a few words, louder and louder each time before slumping back into the chair and the transmission ended.

“Well?” Vector asked.

“I think whatever it was, it was wounded. You saw how some of it was a different colour to most of it? I think that sort of pale white...skin? I think it was skin, that was normal. But it had parts that were red, green. Clearly in pain. It seemed like a warning. Captain, I think we need to leave.” Dusty said with a slight amount of panic in her voice.

“Nonsense. Look whatever that thing was it’s long gone. See, nopony at all on the bridge.” Vector said with a huff.

“Yes sir, but there would be some remains. How is there nothing. Even if it had been dead thousands of years.”

“I understand. But we have a mission, until we see evidence we’re in mortal danger I cannot permit any of the crew to leave. Understood?” Vector barked. There was a grumbling but general agreement from the rest of the Officers, communications went silent again.

It wouldn’t be long now. She knew once they had boarded they had limited time. She couldn’t train the guns yet but usually the computer from what she heard was quick to reallocate command functions.

Ah, there it was.

“Captain?”

“Yes?”

“Over here...there’s something...growing?”

“What do you mean, growing?”

“Not sure...give me a second. I’m just examining the material…”

There was an initial yell. One of pain. Vector was still obviously slightly oblivious to what was starting to happen to his crew.

“What is going on!? My suit and pad are showing a bio hazard warning. What have you done?!”

“Something’s loose! It’s killing us! S-save yourselves!”

There was more frenzied yelling, she heard the pad of Vector crash to the floor for a final time. The communications channel was filled with the pained screams of the Captain and crew being consumed by it. A fitting end, she thought for ponies who had spent their entire lives consuming themselves only to be consumed by an alien life form they had no clue how to handle. After a few moments of screams the communications channel went dead. A message flashed before her eyes.

COMMUNICATIONS LOST.

PRIORITY. REESTABLISH COMMAND. ALL SHIP FUNCTIONS TRANSFERRED.

Without a moment's hesitation, Starflier knew what to do. She had to avoid the same incident as last time. Immediately she trained every single gun the ship had on the Titan and opened fire.

It took a few moments for the shells to actually reach the target due to the distance involved, but once they did there was an ear shattering KABOOM as the projectiles ripped through the hull and tore it to pieces. For good measure, she fired off one of the small nuclear warheads to break it apart completely and watched from the targeting system as fragments of the vessel fell into an even more heavily decayed orbit, burning up into the atmosphere of the planet it had spent so long circling around.

She sighed, it was over. All in all they had lost the Captain, all Officers and some other crew Vector had felt it appropriate to bring over to investigate the object. It wasn’t nearly as devastating as last time. Those fools back on Equestria, meddling in a life form they just didn’t understand. It had cost them dearly. At least this time it had cost them, but only a fraction of the damage it had done before.

The message still flashed in front of her about reestablishing command. She ignored it. There was no command to reestablish. For now, Starflier was command.

She back-traced the path they had taken to get to their current position, programming the flight computer to follow it exactly to the letter. It would take months, but she’d make it back to Equestria. This time, she had to warn those she knew about the danger lurking on these vessels. Before they had just covered it up, she was partly sure that was the reason why she had ended up in the situation she had done. How many more vessels like the Titan were out there, waiting with its cargo of death to turn ponies into unspeakable biomass horrors?

Starflier locked in the course she had set, turning off the feeding tubes keeping her so large at the same time. She knew she’d still be massive by the time they reached home, but without the continual upkeep of mass she might even be able to waddle her way out of the hull by the time they got back...if not, she could just hold the ship somewhere until she was a reasonable size again. The crew still on board might wonder how the ship was flying...no matter. None of them could take control.

For now, the priority was to get home. The engines whirred into life and The Starflier vanished into hyperspace.