Where Black Seas Lap the Shores of Dead Stars

by The Hat Man

1. Of a Strange and Distant Time

Out from infinite depths of the obsidian void, a glinting shard of metal pierced the Oort cloud like a rusted nail and began to drift inward toward Equus.

The defensive probes picked it up on their sensors as it drifted past frozen Charlatan and into the realms of the gas giants. It was tiny - three meters in length and 45 centimeters in diameter - and misshapen to the point that at first it seemed like it might be some interstellar asteroid or a comet that never came to its full glory.

But then the defensive line of scanners blared a warning. The shard briefly glowed as a burst from its propellant engines shifted its course and jolted it forward through space on a direct course to the blue planet at the center of the system.

There could be no doubt, then: whatever the object was, intelligent minds had built it and sent it their way deliberately.

The ESDF sent their ships to intercept, guns at the ready, and every creature on board was gripped by the same fear of what this could mean. Every single one of them had grown up hearing stories from their grandsires about the war that had scorched the cosmos millennia ago, of the merciless invaders from the stygian depths of space, and the abominations that lurked beyond the most ancient of stars.

Captain Blue Dot stood at her ship’s helm, her teeth gritted and her coat slick with sweat as the fleet neared the object.

The ships scanned it and got their first look at the thing. It was cylindrical and made of a combination of titanium and other metals, but its outer hull was a strange patchwork of parts gleaned from the corpses of long-dead machines. Its surface was pock-marked with the impact of micrometeoroids and scorched by the fires of alien suns.

Yet the design was unmistakable: ponies, not aliens, had crafted this vessel and sent it across the galaxy, back to their world of origin.

The captain breathed a sigh of relief, and the crew began to scramble to retrieve the vessel when it suddenly powered on and began sending out a distress signal.

“Ma’am, it’s using a universal S.O.S. signal followed by a request for a response,” the Communications Officer said, her hoof to her earpiece. “It’s repeating the signal, ma’am. Should we respond?”

Captain Blue Dot’s eyes narrowed, her face creased with wrinkles. “Keep your weapons trained on it, but yes. Let’s see if it has more to say.”

The response was sent and the basic pattern of beeps and blips ceased. Instead, a transmission came, and it was the synthetic voice of a machine speaking words that none of them could understand.

“Computer, identify!” the captain shouted.

“Language identified as Ponnish, Captain,” the disembodied voice of the ship’s computer said.

“Doesn’t sound like it to me,” she grumbled. “Is the signal garbled?”

“No, Captain,” the computer replied. “It is an old dialect closely identified with the border worlds of the First Diaspora.”

Blue Dot froze. “Translate immediately!” she bellowed.

“Understood… translation is as follows: ‘This vessel was sent from the terraforming colony on Medea-3, established by the AguaVita Corporation in 2372 CYP. Terraforming efforts have failed. Rescue and recovery missions never came. Survivors request immediate rescue. This message will repeat until acknowledged… This vessel was sent from the terraforming colony on Medea-3, established by the AguaVita Corporation in 2372 CYP…’”

“Acknowledge the message in the same dialect,” Blue Dot commanded.

The computer transmitted the response, and the voice fell silent.

“Captain,” the ship’s computer said, “the vessel transmitted one last message before it ceased communicating. It stated, ‘I am sorry. I hope this was enough.’”

Blue Dot furrowed her brow when the helmspony suddenly sat upright. “Ma’am, we detected a surge within the probe, after which all functions ceased! The central computer seems to have self-destructed!”

The vessel was on the ship’s viewscreen. It was little more than a pipe with odd protrusions and a patchwork hull. It began to list aimlessly in the vacuum of space as its beacon lights went dark.

Whatever had just spoken to them, it was dead now.

The captain ran her tongue around her cheek as she considered her next action. “Have the probe brought aboard,” she said finally.

The crew brought the vessel on board. At its core they found no navigational computer, but the smoldering remains of an ancient machine’s brain.

They also found a small cube, an ancient data storage device that pre-dated quantum computing standards.

“Have Engineering access that thing and see if we can read what’s on it,” Blue Dot said to one of the ensigns as she passed it to him.

“Aye, Captain!” the ensign chirped and ran off with the cube.

“Ma’am,” her first officer whispered to her as they stared down at the innards of the probe, “correct me if I’m wrong, but did it say 2372 CYP?”

She nodded. “That’s what I heard,” she said, stroking her chin.

“But if that’s true, then this vessel is—”

“—almost five thousand years old,” Blue Dot confirmed.