//------------------------------// // Act 2, Chapter 1: Haze/The Meeting of the Minds // Story: Ladies And Gentlecolts, We Are Floating In Space // by PeaceColt112 //------------------------------// Boom boom boom …do you think she’s able to…? Boom boom boom ...I don’t think we should trust her… Boom boom boom Aeris woke, a sharp pain in her right forehoof startling her. Instinctively, her right forehoof attempted to reach the limb in question, causing Aeris even more pain. Everything seemed to hurt, every movement she made, every breath she took. She resigned herself to simply staring at the ceiling with her foggy, barely open eyes, taking the surroundings in using her other senses. The taste of rust floated around her mouth mixed with a faint hint of blood. Her tongue found a hole where one of her teeth used to be, the pain making it withdraw rapidly. Where was she? Even though she could not see yet, she could smell. The air smelled of motor oil and grease, metallic clangs audible in the distance. Aeris tried to open her eyes a bit more, if only slightly, and was instantly met by a blinding whiteness, followed by a burning red sensation. After a few minutes of waiting, her eyesight returned, faint as it may be. The only things she was able to make out were sets of pipes, bound by wire and illuminated by the red lighting the emergency service lamps. She was definitely in the underground part of the ship, the place where the service crews used to make sure that the Eternity kept moving. Foggy memories started coming back. She remembered an elevator of sorts, an explosion and tons of sparks. After that, only blackness and loss seemed to remain, her floating in the dark waters of the unconscious mind. She could not remember how long it was since the sparks and the explosions but in her honest opinion it didn’t matter. The NLRSS Eternity had been afloat in space for nigh on a century, a few more days or weeks made no difference. Then, to her surprise, voices came from the distance, her left ear perking up and moving around, as if to collect the sensation of someone else’s presence after this period of seemingly never-ending solitude. One of the two voices seemed deeper, more masculine, while the other was distinctly female. Two heads floated inside her field of vision, blurring in and out periodically, followed by a few jabs of pain here and there. Finally, they stood above her for a few seconds longer, her mind able to create a full face from the blurry mess. One of the voices, the female one, belonged to a griffin, her beak almost touching Aeris’s snout. A pair of maintenance goggles rested on her forehead, covered in layers of mechanical oil and dirt. She was a working gal for sure, probably one of the last members of the skeleton crew that was left behind in order to keep the ship alive. The second voice was the male one, definitely belonging to a pony, a unicorn no less, with a messy grey coat and black mane. He was bent over her, a few medical tools floating around his head. Aeris could feel him probing her foreleg, gently touching it and wrapping bandages around it. Suddenly, he turned around, his face only a few inches from Aeris’s, his mouth moving. She was transfixed by the unicorn’s deep eyes, the left one brown, the right one green, both radiating such incredible warmth. “Get ready…” he said softly, almost whispering “This is going to hurt” In an instant, the whole of Aeris’s body seemed to explode with the worst pain she had ever felt. It was as if someone had dropped her into the path of a giant steamroller. She wanted to scream but her mouth refused to, only labored breathing escaping her clenched jaw. Then the whole ordeal stopped, the pain leaving her body as quickly as it had arrived. Once again, the unicorn’s face floated inside her field of vision, her gaze meeting his. “Don’t worry.” Aeris noticed a tiny drop of blood on his grey face “Everything’s fine now, you can rest. We’ll be back soon to check up on you” And with that, the caretakers left, Aeris alone once again. She needed to collect herself; she needed to find a way out of here and onto the bridge, the lives of twenty thousand innocents at stake. Her head throbbed, a dull ache passing through her entire body. She sought rest but her mind gave her none, repeatedly prompting her to get up and get moving. Every movement that she attempted was met with a series of sharp pains, albeit not as bad as before. With a grunt, she swung her broken leg over the side of the cot, the rest of her body following suit. A bout of dizziness hit her; the sudden motions made her head spin. Her vision started to sharpen and soon she could tell where she was. Just as she had suspected, she was in the service tunnels beneath the ship, rusty walls spanning the entire length of Aeris’s vision. A table stood in the corner, host to an assortment of medical tools and a chessboard, some of the wood pieces stained with blood. He dull rusty brown of the walls was occasionally broken by the odd picture. Every now and then, a dull thud could be heard, echoing through the empty room. It seemed to stay the same, almost resembling a heartbeat, slow and warm. Mirror. Aeris needed a mirror. Thankfully, the doctor left one on the end table beside her. Slowly, she picked it up and with a shaky hoof, she brought it towards her face. Initially, nothing was out of the ordinary, her face the same as usual, strands of messy orange-white mane covering parts of her eyes. She had a few cuts near her snout but that’s pretty much it. She put the mirror down, releasing a silent gasp of relief. Everything was alright, she was still herself. A sharp pain shot through her hoof, reminding her that she was none the less badly injured. The curious eyes inspected her injured limb, now covered in a thick bandage, spots of blood dotting the white surface. Whenever she bent it upwards, it hurt. She could walk, just not very well. After a few more minutes of inspecting herself, she was ready to move. Easy now, she said to herself as her hooves descended onto the metal floor. Her left hind leg made first contact, the warmth of the metal coming as a surprise. Slowly she lowered the right leg. And then, she fell flat on her face, knocking the end table over. Then, hoofsteps, approaching fast. The airlock opened, a lone griffon standing behind it, rifle at the ready, barrel pointed straight at Aeris’s skull. One movement and she was as good as dead, her body freezing as a result. “Hold it right there” said the griffon “Nobody said you could go.” Aeris did not know how to respond, her mouth idly opening and closing. This was not happening. No, this was not real, for sure. The griffon took a step forward and Aeris threw herself backwards a bit, a decision she immediately regretted. She fell onto her back, a spike of pain piercing her arm. Then, a second pair of hooves echoed from the hallway followed by rapid yelling. The grey unicorn doctor ran inside, throwing himself in front of the rifle. He stood on his hind legs, both of his arms outstretched towards the gun’s menacing metal barrel. “Phaedra! What in the hell do you think you’re doing?!” he yelled, eyes aflame, slowly approaching the gun “She’s a guest! Don’t matter if she’s an enemy or a friend, she’s too badly injured to do anything!” Slowly, he put his hoof on top of the rifle, lowering it towards the floor, his warm eyes pointed directly at the overly paranoid griffon. He then backed away, slowly approaching the middle of the room before finally sitting down. Aeris was utterly confused. Everything happened so fast, her sharp mind now surprisingly dulled by the injuries. “Sorry about that, she can be a downright idiot sometimes” he glared briefly at the griffon “We never meant to scare you. We’re in a lot of danger here and sometimes we get ahead of ourselves a bit.” He reached out towards the shivering brown pony, offering her a hoof shake, a gesture which she sheepishly accepted. “I don’t think that we have been introduced” He spoke in a distinctive Russian accent, most of his words sounding like something that you would hear in a bar in the middle of the Volga-Moscow conurbation. “My name is Isaac” he pushed his glasses back and added “Doctor Isaac Asimov”