A Few hours later
2552/ October 2th/ 1400 hours
Solar reaches his captain quarters after the poker game, with the ship engineering reports "in-hoof", in reality they were floating next to him in his magic aura but, Ponies say 'in-hoof'.
He walked in his room, A clean and organized room, with his bed on the left side of the room and a rather fancy and Large desk on the right, big enough to fit a pony. He just looked around the room for little while before he decisively lifts up his right fore-hoof, pulled down his sleeve with magic to reveal a VERY expensive hand crafted gold watch and started to count down with the watches ticking

" 10, 9, 8, 7, 6..." right down to "3...2...1!" as he hits 1 his head shoots up from looking at his watch to looking at his bed, and just as he looks he sees a three simultaneous bright flashes of light which cause him to squint due to their intensity in light, but only for a moment. One of the flashes were white ,one purple and the final one being a mixture of purple and blueish white, suggesting two ponies sent it together.
"ah, on time like always... now the question is that what i should read first... my PDA ship analysis... or my family's letters..." he pondered as he pulled a hoof from the ground and on to his chin to form a thinking pose, one resembling a human holding his/her chin when pondering.

"family comes first in most cases..." he starts to walk around the room, levitated the PDA and letters around him and over the desk, debating what goes on and what comes with him onto the bed for reading.
"but i have a ship over 1KM in length and over 2000 crew to run... but, No! snap out of it! The ship comes first, then family letters, its not like they even disappear, i still have the first one sent from my mother and father lying around here somewhere."

He sets the letters down on the desk next to him and lies down on his bed, beginning to read the ship diagnostics reports and general reports but only for a few moments in peace before having his A.I intrude.

"Captain, you know reading like that does not help focus and in fact hurts productivity, so maybe you should at the very least sit up-right when reading that." She announces while the Holographic display flickers on, showing scrambled images of light and half formed parts for a few seconds before the A.I finally comes though.

"Parallax, those tests where conducted on humans, not ponies and I'm the captain anyway. Last time i checked an A.I can't order his/her captain around about there reading habits!"

Solar,after finishing his sentence, glances over to the A.I display across the room with a smirk "am i wrong?". There on the A.I display sits Parallax, a Smart A.I who was modeled to take on the appearance of a female lab technician. she had long straight hair and was was displayed in a whitish-Teal (Blizzard Blue to be exact) color.

"True, but i can still advise the captain on many things"

Solar quickly glances away from his PDA again and towards her direction again
"yes, but there is also a thing called habit Parallax, and this is one of mine, and i do not intend on breaking it"

"if you say so captain"

with that the display flickers and then shuts off
Solar, with small huff of victory, continues to read the PDA, assessing the ships current situation
"prototype engines... prototype hull-plating... Titanium Gold and tungsten Alloy... etc etc..." As he skims over the information, he sees something that he did not expect to see.

"yup,yup, technical stuff and... Wait," he sits upright. "prototype ablative energy hull? classified instillation, intimidate testing required...by ONI...wait...ONI!"
His eyes wide and mouth agape, his mind raced to process this. ONI was going to test some new prototype shield and he got to be the first to use it, the first non human captain got to test it out first, before even the top brass got to test it.

He felt a surge of Adrenalin rush through his body at the idea of his ship and him being known as heroes, being able to take on multiple ships at a time, and with his magic, if need be, he could surround the ship in his own magic barrier, making his ship twice if not three times as tanky. Only one other time in his UNSC career made him more giddy than this, when he was presented his academy award for finishing and the thought that he was the first of his kind to join a intergalactic race to explore the universe. however after his first battle with the covenant he realized that Humanity was being threatened with the prospect of extinction, and so he dedicated his career, not to exploration of the stars, but the protection of humanity.

And after so many years of service to the UNSC and exemplary performance and loyalty, ONI thinks that he is capable of handling, as well as, using prototype UNSC technology.
He used one of his fore legs to cover his mouth in a vain attempt to not squeed. but, alas, he squeed.
"sir, i just registered a rather high frequency sound coming from you, what was that about"
Now, even though it was just the ship A.I and he was the captain of the ship and can order her to do about 100 things about it to make sure not one would not even know but all he could do was go red from embarrassment
"Ju-just ignore that OK? it's a flaw with equine physiology, nothing i can do about that."

but being who Parallax is, she had already reviewed Solars medical file while he was finishing his sentence.
"sir, i have your physiology scans on medical memory banks here and just by looking at it i can tell that for you to produce a sound that high in frequency, you would have to have done it on purpose."
"Parallax, this is a direct order! it never happened... anything else to report?"

"Yes sir, the engineer peter stignkov has just reported in and told me there is a direct link to ONI for you once he is done debriefing ONI. Apparently ONI wants to speak to you about some of the classified Prototypes that have been installed into the ship, they are reading you in on the classified technology."
"thank you parallax, you are dismissed"

upon being dismissed, Parallax's image begins dismantle and fragment as the holographic display switches off, leaving Solar alone. He breathes a sigh of relief.

After a moment, A sound emits from Solar's computer, signaling that someone is on private comms and wants to talk to him directly
"that probably ONI"
He sluggishly gets up off his bed and walks over to his wall monitor, which is on the same side of the room as his bed. he switches it on and takes a seat, upon looking at the screen Solar is immediately greeted with a ONI commander
"Captain Solar Midnight, I am Commander Chinkov of ONI command, and i am here to read you in on the two active prototypes that are currently installed on your ship"

"Yes, i have read up on one briefly just before, the ablative energy hull."
"yes, the ablative energy hull is a new technology loosely based on covenant shield and the UNSC's emergency reactive armor that is installed on all bridge windows. When it is activated, A special titanium plate alloy will extend out from special ablative Generators. Up to 80% of the ship will be covered by this titanium alloy plating.

Once fully deployed, the ablative generators will begin to generate a energy shield current through-out the the ablative plates, creating a energy shield skin, similar to a Spartan's shielding." Through out that entire readout the ONI commander was completely devoid of any emotion and was speaking in a complete monotone and solar was getting bored very quickly.

"Very well then" solar remarks, raising his gaze from the PDA he was reading while being read in from the commander, he then switches to the next document on his tablet with a simple swipe of his hoof.

solar adjusts himself and sits himself up right. "Now what is the other prototype you are testing? A 'project hurricane'? what is it supposed to be because all i have gotten on my PDA is the project name and a very brief introduction/brief into what it is"

The ONI commander puts down the PDA that was currently in his hand and exchanges it for a PDA on a table far off to the right of him. "That! Captain! that is a new type of propulsion for large and capital ships, currently it has 350% higher efficiency than that of current capital engines, and we hope we can get that up to 450% With fresh and real data instead of simulated data"

"i must ask, any reason why my ship was chosen for both of the prototypes?"
"only two reasons. Firstly, yours was the only one in the UNSC fleet undergoing a retro fit longer than 3 weeks, all the other ships were either protecting earth, Undergoing a quick retrofit, currently in spec ops or were under construction. Secondly, your ship is a Halcyon class light cruiser, which the engines and ablative hull were both designed for in the first place. the plan was that the engine and Ablative hull would be installed in time for the pillar of autumn because it was undergoing a six week retrofit originally, but there was not enough time for either of the prototypes to be installed due to the attack on reach. In fact, the blueprints and parts hadn't even reached reach by the time the covenant attacked so the pillar of autumn's retrofit was cut by four weeks and the prototypes were safe and sound on earth"
"anything else?"
The ONI commander put down his PDA and simple shook his head and promptly said "Thats all for now. You have your orders."

"which are?" Solar asked inquisitively but also in a monotone voice

directly from ONI command itself, so they take precedence above all others. you and your crew are to test the prototypes under your stress and battle conditions." and with that the commander logs off.
"throughout the entire thing, couldn't he have at least tryed to stop being so damned mono toned?" mumbled solar.
the pony couldn't help but think about if this was equestira, the commander wouldn't have just dismissed him like and had been so boring but instead would have been much more friendly and would have taken time to explain things in depth, not a quick general run-down.

"well... its not equestria, its humanity and they are at war so, i can't blame them for that. they have known war and bloodshed for so long while ponies haven't even had a war were a single living creature has died yet as a result. shows how peaceful we truly are compared to the rest of the universe."
with a sigh of frustration and some furious rubbing of his head with his hooves while messing up his mane a bit.

Solar looks around his room for something to take his mind off what just happened.
As his eyes jump from object to object around his room, looking for something
his eyes then land on the bedside table next to his bed, which sat his family letters.
"ah... i should check in on how they are doing. my mother and father will most likely tell me how much they missed me and inform me about the next event that i should go to so we all could meet up and have a big family reunion. my sister... is probably going to tell me that she found out something cool or learned some new spell... and my brother...I honestly have no clue."

He gets up from his chair and 'grabs' the letters while walking over to his bed. as we walks over to his bed, a whole bunch more letters appear in bright flashes of white, red, orange, green and shades of blue.
"Ah! there's my friends letters"picking up the newly arrived letters as well as his family's ones. He Places them down on his bed-side table while levitating the ones from his family, he was just about to lie down and decide which one to read before...
*growl...gurgle* he stops mid lying down, leaving him balancing between siting and lying down before he has to get up.

"ugh damn... i should to eat something." and thus he turns around and starts to walk towards the door, putting down the letter to head to the mess hall near the bridge. Because he was the captain his quarters were literally fifteen minutes walk away from the main corridor that lead to the bridge and then with a quick turn around a U turn around a corner was the mess hall.
"good thing i requisitioned a actual chief instead of just having the normal automated dispensers, because I think I'm going to try something new..." he mumbles loudly as he exits his quarters.

"meat? because if my knowledge of earth horses in someway apply's to you, that is NOT a good idea..."

Solar: " Commander Catherine, i gave you command of the bridge ,did i not? meaning you should be there right now."

Catherine: "Yes Sir, but the engineering team needs the bridge cleared because they found some faults in the command-outputs in the navigation and combat consoles and stations as well as a few other problems throughout the bridge, most likely caused from battle damage and bad construction methods when the ship was first commissioned."
Solar: "well then, care to join me in the mess hall? I'm going there because-"
*growl*
Solar goes a slight tad red, while rolling his eyes... "well... that's mainly why I'm going"
Catherine is a bit shocked from Solar's stomach because of the intensity of noise it could create, it was quite loud and in fact it hurt her ears.

Catherine: "Is that normal?" she inquisitively asks, while getting ready to poke his abdomen to make sure that was in fact him and not the ship exploding.

Solar smirks a tad. "well as a pony, your stomach can be quite demanding...and when its roughly two time the size of a human head and yet no food has gone into it for at least... lets say around 18 hours, it will begin to 'voice its desire' for something..." not waiting for his stomach to 'voice its desires' again and make her go deaf in her right ear, she decides it would be wise to distance herself from his middle abdominal region.

Catherine: "Oh, by the way captain, i just remembered that the ONI operative has finally installed all the classified prototypes, whatever they are. have you been read in by ONI at all or is this a blind test like they did on the UNSC Shimil?"

Solar: "i was just briefed about them five minutes ago. i have been given some authority, i think, on how best to test the prototypes, as seeming i am the captain of the ship but they still have to be under some kind of battle condition."

Catherine: "my i ask why they picked this ship? i mean a halcyon class is one of the best ships in the UNSC fleets if they were upgraded to the autumn specifications after the refit, of which this one is, in my opinion don't get me wrong, but there are marathons class cruisers and UNSC carriers and all manner of other ships to test experimental prototypes on, and i thought ONI would be deterred from putting anything on this ship because of A, the battle damage and its old history and B, because of... you, no offense captain, and... well... there also is an entire fleet of ship in better condition, compared to us. I mean we are still trying to fix the holes in the hull."

Solar: "Well the Pillar of Autumn was meant to undergo a 10 week refit instead of the 2 week refit that they did, in that time it would of installed all of the prototypes that were specifically designed for a halcyon class cruiser and I'm guessing it would take ONI months and loads of resources to redesign the prototypes to be able to install them into other ships. So when they saw my ship was undergoing a full retrofit ,they must have used their ONI power to install whatever they wanted onto this ship so they could finally test out their new experimental toys."

As he finishes his sentence they turn around the final corridor and meet some crewmen leaving the cafeteria who looked like they was just leaving some kind of amazing party. two of them were walking down the corridor chatting away and one following behind with a few streamers and a whole lot of confetti attached to the crew members cloths and their hair is caked with the stuff.

Solar: "I wonder, what on earth could that chief be cooking that is so good that my crew start having party about it"
A enlisted crewman walks by while telling them in passing comment, not noticing that they were captain and second in command.
" I honestly have no clue, but he is cooking up a storm in there and Emily is throwing one hell of a 'first flight' party! I have to say, for a talking horse, the captain makes some damn good decisions, just hope he is as good as in a battle situation and doesn't get us blown up!"
Just before Catherine was about blow all her fuses and shout the enlisted crewman out of an airlock for being disrespectful, solar however, quells her, mostly for the enlistee's sake, and partly for his because of the paperwork involved.

Solar: "Catherine, i will handle this, i don't need you to speak for me, i have a mouth of my own"he begins to walk up towards the enlisted and uses his height to stand over the enlisted when he reaches him "Crewman, for your information, don't describe me as a horse or next time i will reprimand you for disrespecting an officer! is that understood"

the enlisted crew member stops facing the ground and looks the captain in the eye and then quickly speaks.
"yes sir! Sorry Sir!" then he continues on his journey to where ever he was meant to be at while not on break hours.
the two continue to walk towards the mess hall, as they enter they a fairly packed mess hall they see streamers and party poppers go off as well as some crew yelling out "First flight!" as well as some banners that read 'First Flight' ,and not a single table that wasn't occupied

Solar: "well then... i don't know if we can even get a seat with a crowd this large."

Catherine:"Well if there wasn't a party going on in thanks to ensign Emily here then the mess hall would be almost bare"
the two watch as chiefs going in and out of the kitchen, bringing out all sorts of food and laying them out onto the central table that has currently piled high with food, and it was only getting bigger.

Solar stares at the central table, figuring out what he wants to eat and starts to make his way through the crowd and hears some cadets talking about certain dish with horseradish. he shudders a bit and Catherine asks if he is OK. "i fine, don't worry" he waves a hoof of reassurance. " Its just that every time i hear someone say horseradish, i think of a horse or pony being turned into that stuff, which creeps me out"

Catherine turns rather quickly to face him "sir! What the hell even gave you a thought like that? That's just sick... i mean its animal cruelty in the first place and..." she thinks about it for only a second before realizing what she said she immediately saluted and began to apologize.
"SIR, IN NO MANNER DID I MEAN THAT YOU ARE AN ANIMAL, SIR!"

Solar: "Its OK Catherine, i know you didn't mean it and its just a slip of the tongue, cant blame you when i physically look very similar to earthen equines. Anyway, with the horseradish thing, it was a academy prank. i guess when you are a freshmen cadet and see a talking equine trying to enter the UNSC, your first thought is that its just one giant universal joke, and some of them second thought was to prank me as much as possible, which most of the time didn't work but the horseradish one did"

Catherine:"how did they prank you with them turning a horse into horseradish?"

Solar:"they made a fake video, with very good effects i might add, of a horse getting turned into horseradish and then one of them putting it into a soup that i usually ate when i was in the academy, gave me nightmares for weeks, and it put me off French onion soup for a couple of years."

Catherine Started to laugh at the whole scenario, before looking back up to see that solar was NOT amused, at all!. "Sorry sir"

Solar looked around the room and then focuses his eyes onto a group of cadets having fun with party poppers and confetti and in general having fun before speaking "you know I'm being easy on everyone" he turns back around to look at Catherine and in the process sees a free table " ah ,Catherine you get the food, I'll go get the table."

Catherine not even needing to ask solar what he wanted because after a month of them eating together, she knows what he always eats... a Vegetarian Russian onion soup...
After roughly thirty seconds of waiting in a queue to get to the table with all the food, she returns to the table with solar.
"sir, about your previous statement, what did you mean 'you know I'm being easy on everyone'? On the UNSC Brentha Paris Frigate you were rather fine officer when it came to being strict without being a tight ass."

Solar:" you really think so? i thought i was being kind of soft, it took me weeks before i could stop that poker game!
anyway, I'm only being soft because i know not many people are used to the idea of having a equine as their commanding officer" he takes a sip of his freshly made coffee that he had an ensign get him while he was waiting for Catharine "And i didn't want my first impression of being in charge as being some cruel captain who saw humanity as below them or a unforgiving S.O.B (-son of a bitch-) . I'm just letting the crew adjust to the idea of serving an equine commander like a cat adjusting to a new home, because i know it must be quite difficult for them to accept the idea of serving a captain like me."

Catherine: "well its easy for me to serve you"

Solar:"That's because you were with me on two different ships with Admiral Mandrake and i was your superior officer so you had plenty of time to adjust. same with the few lieutenants and ensigns that served under me"

Catherine:"True, true." she pauses while poking her fork into her food. "I have been wanting to ask you this for along while, but when you use magic, is it like unlimited power? or is there a capacity? how does it work?

Solar takes a sip of his coffee before he begins his sentence and while doing so Catherine decides to add on to her question
Catherine:" I'm asking because i remember the time on the UNSC Trimera, the battle of X-05 where we were up against a covenant frigate and were losing, until you used your magic to wrap the ship is a bubble of some kind that protected us from everything they threw at us, and each time a projectile hit the shield you would flinch and the aura around your horn would flare up a little bit, progressively getting worse each time until your horn started to emit and fling Lightning arcs around the room, hitting nearby consoles and leaving scorch marks in nearby bulkheads. you looked like you had to force yourself more and more to keep it up as the battle progressed So i just want to know about how it works, and if its possible to over do it to-"

Solar:" the point of death? no, but to the point of absolute exhaustion, yes. I'll just give you the basics of how magic works because A, there is no real human science i can use to quantify a lot of it and B, you haven't used any form of magic so its really hard to explain but I'll do my best"

he takes a spoonful of soup and another sip of coffee before he starts
"the easiest way i can explain it is like its a elastic band that you can stretch infinitely as well as a magic capacity tank that also can be expanded infinitely, but you have to expand them in small and reasonable amounts. you see, when i lift books and light items like that, i am using my most basic and easy form of magic, any unicorn can do that starting from the age of four, two if they are gifted. now using basic magic will stretch and expand ones magic elastic band and magic capacity for a while until it becomes easy and both the elastic band and magic tank have become big enough." he sips his coffee
"Then they will have to use more complicated magics and spells to expand their limits while not over doing it because then the elastic band could break and the magic tank will run empty, resulting in exhaustion because the magic will directly draw from your stamina and your own magical essence, which is VERY bad.

Now using magic isn't all about having the concentration, power, magic capacity and the ability to use it, but also the ability to channel it through one's horn and the horns capacity to contain a certain amount of magical power which is also increased through magic use, as one reaches their limit, so does their channeling ability and their horns magical capacity, resulting in 'sparking' and 'embers', as well as a few other magical tell tale signs that show if a pony is struggling or is nearing the end of their magical capability's, but that is all you need to know for the basics."
solar takes another spoonful of soup
Catherine:" OK then... that was A LOT of information about magic... roughly how much more is there?"
"well if that was the first chapter in a book about magic, there would be another 53 chapters roughly because there is an entire science around it."
Catherine mouthing is open in shock, while solar just sits there eating his lunch
" you should eat Catherine, not let that food go to waste."
she snaps out of it and back into reality, and notices how truly hungry she is and starts eating too.
"may i ask one more question?"
"You can"
"how many spells are there in your world?"
solar puts down his spoon and thinks about the question for a bit, taking his time.
"well when i was there there was enough magic spells to fill up roughly over 10,000 of your earth encyclopedia books, with one page dedicated to a whole new spell And i'm not counting the unique spells and magic rituals. trust me there is a lot and even more is made everyday. Infact i just remembered that there was this one spell that could turn creatures into ponies temporally..."
Catherine raises an eyebrow to this and questions the logic of that "um, why would they make a spell like that?"

Solar:" well if we ever find my world, we can go ask them."

The two spend another quarter of an hour chatting and getting deserts and just having a nice time
Catharine:" so, when do you think we will get the all clear to leave the system? i don't like sitting on my hands a-"

Catherine is cut short as parallax interrupts her via a earwig in Solar's left ear, she is left unaware of the news parallax is delivering to the captain but can tell that its on because Solar lifts his hoof to his ear to engage it.

Parallax:" sir, i have just detected a slip space rupture."
solar:" well open a comm's link and ask why they are here, we were supposed to be-"
Parallax:" sir, its not UNSC"

Solar:" then who is it?"

Parallax:" one second sir, they still inside the rupture and... wait, SIR..."

there is a long pause as Parallax calculates something.

"it's a covenant CSO Super Carrier"