//------------------------------//
// ARTICLE 2 Part XI 
// Story: ARTICLE 2 
// by Muppetz 
//------------------------------//

	



ARTICLE 2





Part XI





By: Muppetz




~~~~~


The smell of gunpowder filled her nostrils as Luna stepped over. The crate was filled with random boxes; all marked with brightly colored labels. The first she noticed was a large red and white cardboard carton with bold lettering that read “Marlboro”. 
“Sweet merciful Jesus.” Shane reached down and plucked a carton from the crate. He tore open an end and dumped out several dozen much tinier boxes. He grabbed one; tearing off its protective plastic wrapping. He flipped the lid grabbing a slender white paper stick with his teeth. He practically skipped over to his pack; digging a plain silver light out of a pocket before setting the stick in his mouth on fire. 
He sucked on the orange end of the smoldering paper stick, exhaling a cloud of bluish smoke which drifted lazily off toward the rafters. 
“What in the name of Equestria are you doing?!” Twilight asked infinitely confused by this behavior. 
“What does it look like?” He mumbled before taking another long drag, dreamily blowing twin jets of smoke from his nostrils. The acrid smell filled Twilight’s nose. It smelled chemical and dry.
Pinkie tittered lightly at the spectacle, “He’s just like Spike!”
Bolt had one of the packages in his hoof eagerly examining the box carefully. “STOP!” He zipped over to Shane swatting the smoking stick out of the human’s mouth.
“Hey!” Shane cried angrily. 
“Those are toxic!” He flapped over and stomped on the still smoldering poison stick, extinguishing the toxic fumes that were still drifting from the tip. “Good thing I read the label. You almost breathed that st- WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?” he cried as he turned to see Shane igniting another stick.
“It’s a cigarette, dipshit. It’s SUPPOSED to be full of toxins. Thankfully one of these wondrous little toxins is called nicotine. You inhale the smoke and it gets into the bloodstream and hits the brain with a buzz that’s …just fantastic.”
There wasn’t a closed jaw in the room. Everypony stared at the human like he had lost his mind. 
“You realize that could kill you, correct?” Bolt affirmed. 
He raised the slender stick to his lips, taking another deep drag on the cigarette. He closed his eyes rolling his head back and blew a billowing cloud of grayish blue smoke toward the ceiling. His head came back down, opening at the ponies and smiling. “Didn’t she tell you?” he nodded toward Celestia, still smiling. “I already died.” Thin trails of leftover smoke slipped past his teeth as he spoke. He chuckled at the still flabbergasted faces of his equine audience. Even Celestia’s regal mouth was hanging loose at the turn. “You want one?” He proffered the pack to the group.
Pinkie raised her hoof. “I do!” 
“NO!” the other five immediately shot her down, causing the pink mare to shrink back a bit. 
Celestia finally regained her composure, unsure of how to handle this. “Major, I admit that I am hardly the authority on human customs, but I can’t help but be worried about this. If you know they’re dangerous, why continue to do it”
“A psychologist would probably feed you some bullshit about me having some repressed masochistic tendency for self destruction,” he nodded, casually taking another puff, “But the short answer is that they are highly addicting. In my line of work, long term health concerns are usually the last thing on our minds. Nicotine helps take the edge off, keeps me somewhat calm. And that is good for everybody.”
Celestia eyed him with suspicious disapproval. “Very well, Major. You are apparently an adult and I suppose you are capable of making your own decisions. But please know that this habit is very disturbing to me, and I would implore you to quit as soon as possible. I’m sure I could schedule an appointment with a substance abuse counselor.”
“Aw, are you worried about me, Princess?” Shane teased.
“Let’s just say I have a vested interest in your continued good health,” she answered with a small grin.
“That’s so sweet,” he said with his typical sarcasm, “but how about this. You can worry about you, and I will worry about me. Deal?  Good.” He turned and grabbed an armful of Marlboro cartons. He dumped them unceremoniously into his pelican crate. What space was not occupied by ammunition was quickly filled with cigarettes and the boxes of colored plastic tubes.
Celestia didn’t feel like arguing about it right now. She just planned to strategically nag him about it until he decided it wasn’t worth the trouble. 
“Ho-lee shit!” He exclaimed as he continued to dig in the crate. He pulled out two white packages with calligraphic writing spelling out ‘Jack Daniels’ in flowing script. They appeared to be filled with some sort of powder but Shane looked at them like they were made of diamonds. She swore she saw tears brimming in his eyes.
“It’s just like fuckin’ Christmas!” he hopped over to his assault pack. “We’re saving these for a special occasion,” he idly commented, tucking them safely inside.
He went back to the container, pulling out a few plain white boxes, emblazoned with a small blood red symbol Celestia recognized as medical label.
“Why was it all locked up like this?” Twilight asked. 
Shane popped one open, letting out a satisfied whistle. “Because this is where they kept the good stuff, otherwise known as controlled substances.” 
The box was filled with slender capped tubes, a bit shorter in length than a quill. They came in a variety of colors, purple, red, green, and a few yellow ones. Each colored label spelling out minuscule paragraphs that were too small for Celestia to read without her glasses. “Chems, stims, morphine,” he murmured to himself. Shane tapped a few idly. “…antibiotics, adrenaline…” He stared at the crate of human treasures for a moment. “I don’t think I have room in my bag for all this,” Shane started, disappointment evident in his speech.
“Is it important?” Luna asked curiously, lifting one of the purple tubes, squinting to read the unreasonably tiny print.


CPP-(AutoInj.)
1000mg Acetaminophen
15mg Meloxicam
400mg Moxifloxacin

“Kinda,” he droned. Plucking the purple plastic tube from a cloud of Luna’s magic before she could read on. 
“We can take it with us. Another box isn’t going to make much of a difference.” Luna offered. 
“Really?” 
“I don’t see why not. I’m actually surprised you aren’t taking more.”
“Traditionally speaking I prefer to travel as lightly as possible… that said, I’m also used to having the luxury of resupplies. Somethin’ tells me that’s not gonna happen out here.”
“Well are you going to blow it up if we don’t take it?” 
“No,” he almost laughed.
“Why not? You seemed pretty adamant about not sharing before,” Luna teased.
“Not sharing weapons,” he corrected. “This is different. I don’t care if you guys want in on some of these. It’s medical. At that point I think it becomes humanitarian aid. I don’t know exactly how far your magic can take you healthcare wise. You all seem like you got a pretty good handle on it, but I’d have no problem with you guys studying some of the medical tech. Maybe you’ll learn something and be able to save some lives.”
Celestia was actually touched. Every time she thought she had him figured out he pulled something like this. “Are you allowed to do that?”
“Why not?” he shrugged, “We hand out medical aid and supplies on humanitarian missions all the time. Consider it an act of diplomatic good will,” He smiled.
“How kind,” Celestia laughed, amused, but genuinely appreciative of the gesture. 
“I take care of my own, Princess,” he smiled back. “But before you make me out to be a saint, know that I came here fully prepared to burn this building to the ground.”
“Don’t worry. You were never in danger of being labeled a saint,” Luna jabbed. 
He chuckled.
“So what about that?” Twilight finally interjected, pointing a hoof back at the monolithic twisted spacecraft. 
“What about it?” Shane asked.
“Well, what should we do with it?” 
“Do whatever. I don’t want it,” he said dismissively. 
“Aren’t you worried about it like…advancing our technological development too rapidly or something?” 
“No. There’s nothing there. It’s a metal husk. Go nuts. The engines exploded in orbit, we weren’t carrying spare parts, the only thing left is half of a slipspace drive. The pieces of which, that are left, are well beyond fucked. And if you want me to be brutally honest, I don’t think you guys could figure it out if you wanted to.” Luna snorted slightly at the remark.
Twilight didn’t have much of an answer so she settled back down into contemplative silence
 Luna hated to admit it, but he wasn’t exactly wrong. The chances they would be able to piece the mysteries of the twisted metal vehicle back together were laughably small. And the odds of getting it to function beyond the theoretical were even more so. “Wait,” she halted, as his a few of his words sank in. “You weren’t carrying spare parts?” 
“Nope.”
“Why in the world would you not bring spare parts? What if something went wrong? How would you fix it.”
“We wouldn’t,” he deadpanned, sounding appropriately unhappy about the notion. 
“Then what would you do.”
“Die, probably,” he said far too casually. “Apparently the operation was too high risk to jeopardize losing more equipment. That slipspace engine is probably the most expensive thing mankind has ever created. They didn’t want to risk losing another one if shit went sideways.”
Luna almost laughed. “So in an effort to reduce potential losses…they deny you the equipment you would need to avert a potential loss.”
“Kind of a bitch, ain’t it?”
Luna was actually having difficulty giving voice to her bewilderment. “That…is absurd to the point of being outright offensive.” 
“The Suck…Welcome to it,” he replied cryptically pulling another cigarette from the box and igniting it with his silver metal lighter.
“Come to think of it, a lot about this doesn’t sit very well with me,” Luna continued. “What was the purpose of this mission? Why were you carrying such strange cargo? Too much of this doesn’t make sense. Even beyond the scope of flawed government bureaucracy. Any being capable of even the most remote intelligence could see the illogicality of all this. What were your people doing, Major? ” Luna finally demanded.
Shane drew a long burn on his cigarette, exhaling it thoughtfully. His face became grave, as if he were deciding on something dangerously final. He sighed apprehensively. “If I had to guess…I’d say you’re looking at humanity’s early attempts at a colonization project.”
The group became quiet, all acutely aware that this wasn’t something he was comfortable doing. Nevertheless Celestia felt obligated to interject. “You guess?” 
He nodded, “I have my assumptions. The actual mission objectives were well above my pay grade,” he leaned in slightly, “Which is saying something. I make a pretty decent living, if you know what I mean.”
She did, but she continued anyway. “They sent you on this mission and didn’t even tell you why?” 
“They didn’t tell ME why; I’m sure someone knew.”
“I still don’t understand the reasoning.”
He exhaled a cloud of smoke. “Me neither.”
“If this is all so secretive why are you telling us all this?” Celestia asked.
“I was never privy to mission directives. So technically I’m not leaking information. This is all just me thinking out loud. The only reason I know as much as I do is because I have nasty habit of sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong. My orders were basically just ‘tag along’. Myself, and two other Marines on board, we’re told to speculate and plan for the possibilities of future missions. Just train in zero G, watch, learn, and just kinda see what it’s like. If I had to guess I’d say, when we got back, they were going to put us in charge of training more security forces if they ever wanted to launch a full scale surface landing. Everyone else on board was either Naval or civilian contracted scientists, mechanics, or whatever.
This was all just supposed to be a dry run. That ship could carry over sixty people if it had to. We crewed it with eleven. I think they just wanted to make sure the ship could make a jump with all its rattle. You know, make sure none of the gear reacted to a slipspace rupture, and…you know… to see if the crew would survive.”
“You were guinea pigs,” Twilight breathed, still slightly shocked.
“…pretty much.” 
“You knew this and yet you did it anyway?!”
 “That’s what they pay me for. I get orders, I carry out orders.”
“Like a loyal little war hound,” Luna mocked.
He blew a jet of smoke at the lunar princess. “Woof.” 
Luna flapped an indigo wing at the smoke, trying her best not to give him the satisfaction of seeing her cough. This habit of his was going to be a problem. 
“Well what about the rest of the stuff? All this technology? You don’t care that we see all that? I thought like…half of your motivation here was to keep us on the right technological chronology.”
“There isn’t much left. Everything I though was dangerous is in about a zillion pieces at the bottom of a crater. I have virtually everything that isn’t. I don’t think some wires, circuitry, and outdated blackboards are gonna spark some industrial revolution. I don’t even see why you would want to. It’s not like you need any of this. You aren’t stupid so there’s obviously a reason you didn’t already develop this stuff yourselves. You never needed to. You’d be wasting a whole lot of time and resources on something you can all probably already do with magic. I mean what’s the worst you’re gonna do with it, send me emails?” he punctuated with an over exaggerated look of fear. “I guess I could destroy it just out of spite that you didn’t actually develop it yourselves but I guess I’m just not that petty.” He looked back over the leftovers. “Keep it, learn from it. Call it a gift. I may not be ready to arm you all just yet, but as allies I can’t have you embarrassing me in front of all the other dimensions.” He teased. “Welcome to the modern age.”  
Celestia gazed over the alien prizes the human had just left to her care. The gesture meant more than the human probably knew. An ‘industrial revolution’ is exactly what this could spark. This stuff may have been commonplace in the world he came from. But such technology if successfully marketed could in fact make somepony insanely wealthy. At the time, virtually all complicated machinery was reliant solely on magically charged gemstones. A process that was complex, expensive, and solely reliant on high level unicorn magic. The implications made Celestia’s head spin. A society where everypony had access to advanced technologies. Bulky and complicated equipment now packed into a hoof-held device. Machines that no longer required gem-fueled spell matrices. The market would be flipped overnight. It would change the face of society. Business, economy, the very fabric of Equestria, if not handled carefully.

Twilight spoke softly as if unsure how to phrase it. “…aren’t you worried about us, you know…becoming a threat?”
It took him a split moment to register her words. He startled the entire room when he started laughing. He continued to chuckle boisterously, much to the chagrin of a blushing Twilight. “Yeah, be careful. You might cute someone to death.” 
“Why you little!” Applejack caught Rainbow Dash’s tail just in time before she could flying tackle the laughing human. Shane didn’t seem to notice.
“Ah man,” he started to calm down, still chuckling slightly. “I needed that.”
“Well isn’t that why you destroyed all the weapons?!” Twilight demanded, stomping a hoof, very offended by the outburst. 
“Sure but come on. That was practically a formality. Standard procedure. I don’t know anything about this place. You all seem nice enough but I don’t know your politics or history or disposition. How do I know your not about to go off start a war with the ponies next door? It’d be a slaughter. I’m not gonna be the guy that started that. “I’m only keeping my guns to protect myself.”
“From what?” Twilight drilled.
“You,” he said far too easily. He smiled down at Twilight’s stunned visage. “Don’t act surprised. I’ve known you for all of about two days. That’s not exactly an ideal span to develop and informed opinion.”
“What happened to trust?” Twilight said with a frown.
“Don’t go making this about trust again,” he rolled his eyes. “I do trust you. If I didn’t I wouldn’t be here right now. I just dropped out of the sky into a world of strangeness and magic the likes of which I will probably never understand. I don’t know what’s out there.” He gestured vaguely to the rest of the world. “I’m not giving anybody any weapons.” He leaned a little closer to Twilight. “I’ll let you in on a little secret. Guns ain’t that tough to figure out. If you actually had the need to build a better death machine, you’d have done it by now. You said it yourself. ‘A safe little peaceful nation’. I’m in a world I know nothing about. So I’m removing the wildcard of weaponry from our already overly complicated hand. I assume there are other nations other than yours on this rock?”
“Yes, of course,” Twilight confirmed.
“If I had landed in their backyard and then you found out I was arming them to the teeth with some alien killing machines… I don’t know about you but I’d probably wig the hell out and do something drastic. I’m playing the big picture here, and I’m not about to go paint a target on the back your heads, OR piss off whoever lives next door.”
“You seem awfully confident.” Luna noted. “How are you so sure we won’t turn on you?” 
He smiled strangely. “Insurance plan number one,” He tapped his shotgun lovingly. 
“You don’t seriously think that you alone pose a threat to an entire nation.” Twilight pointed out.
“No,” he admitted. “But I’m confident enough that I make a mess big and bloody enough to make it not worth the effort.” 
Luna’s ears perked as the human voiced her thoughts from earlier. 
 “You take such twisted pride in your own brutality. I cannot help myself but wonder what goes on inside your head.” Luna noted coldly.
Shane took a long drag on his cigarette, drawing the hot ashen haze into his lungs. “You really don’t wanna know.”
“Are all humans are so violent then?”
“No,” he dismissed annoyed, “If you’re using the words ‘all’ and ‘humans’ in the same sentence, you’re wrong. Very few humans are inherently violent. In my experience, most humans will do just about anything to avoid a fight. Unfortunately such a social schema tends not to bode well for the survival of a species. We didn’t have a choice. We didn’t grow up on ‘Planet  Rainbow Sunshine’. We’ve been fighting a war of survival for hundreds of thousands of years on a planet that did everything in its power to snuff the life out of us. It was get good at killing or die. So that’s where people like me come in,” he patted himself on the front of his armor. “We do the dirty work so that the rest of the world gets to be happy, safe and ignorant. So do please spare me the hippie shit.”
“I’ve no argument against self preservation,” Luna replied, her words holding an edge that only thousands of years of sisterly familiarity allowed Celestia to pick up on. “but when it becomes a glorious pursuit rather than a gruesome necessity I’d begin to grow concerned for the mental states of those involved.”
“Yeah, great. When I need a lesson on Just War Theory from some pacifist pony princesses, I’ll be sure to come straight to you,” the human mumbled.
“What?” 
“Nothing,” Shane said innocently. 
As much as Celestia wanted him to elaborate she felt compelled to interrupt. “There is clearly still much we have to learn about one another. Let us each agree that we have both adapted as best we could to the world in which we live and leave it at that for now,” she looked out into the night. “The dawn is coming. It would be wise to get moving.” Celestia severed the argument before someone said something regrettable.
Shane ground a cigarette butt under the heel of his boot before nodding, ready to go.
“Major,” Celestia continued, “This will most likely be the last time we can visit here again for quite some time. Do you have everything you need?”
He looked over his shoulder, eyes lingering on the broken ship. 
“Yeah. Let’s go.” He walked over to his bags selecting the last of the three rifles he decided to keep. It was much longer than the other two. The long telescope on the top giving it a somewhat unusual appearance. Shane popped a few pins out of the sides breaking the long weapon down into smaller sections, which he carefully tucked inside his pelican crate, before closing it and snapping the latches shut. He adjusted the assault rifle toward his side so that he could wear his pack without obstruction. 
After donning the tan pack, and hooking an arm through a strap on his sea bag, he was beginning to look much like a fully loaded pack mule. He tried to lean down to pick up his precious shotgun, but he seemed to be having some difficulty bending over under all the weight. 
Luna let him struggle for a short moment, the more sinister side of her enjoying the brief moment of weakness, especially after he called her a ‘hippy’. She lifted the weapon off the deck, and into his outstretched hands.
“Thanks.” He flashed a small smile after realizing what had just occurred.
“Don’t mention it,” she replied with a flip of her astral tail. 

~~~~~





Both of Shane’s crates settled delicately onto the back of Celestia’s carriage. The Princess of the sun spent a rather long time arranging the containment of the rest of the leftover alien hardware. As soon as they assured it wasn’t dangerous, she instructed the research staff to lock it away. She couldn’t in all good consciousness destroy it as the human had suggested, it was too valuable. But its secrets were too revolutionary to spring on an unprepared Equestria. Goodness knows they were going to have enough on their plates as it is. No. Deep underground is where it would stay for the time being. 



“Yeah…no,” Shane eyed Celestia’s carriage dubiously from under the low brim of his newly donned eight point cover. 


“Stop being a baby,” Luna scolded, frustrated. 


“I’m not getting back on that thing,” he marked resolutely.


“Well then how do you expect to get back?” she demanded.

Shane had no answer he just kept eyeing the carriage with poorly concealed fear.

 Luna brightened as an idea struck her. “Very well, Major. I didn’t want to do this but…” she beckoned him closer with a hoof, looking around secretively. 


Shane leaned down compliantly, instantly curious. 


Luna spoke in a hushed tone. “What if I told you I could get you back to the castle in the blink of an eye. You won’t have to get back on the carriage and you won’t have to lift a finger." 


“I’d say you have my attention.”


“It’s not for the faint of heart,” she cautioned theatrically,


“…Go on.”


“Luna what are you doing?” Celestia broke in with worry in her voice.


“He’s a big boy, Celestia. I’m sure he can handle it.” She dismissed. “Unless,” she added with a furtive smile, “You doubt yourself.”


Shane snorted, insulted. “Do it,” he challenged.


“Are you suuure?” 


“Do. It.” He repeated sternly.


“So be it. Come,” she beckoned with a hoof. 


He leaned down to the alicorns eye level.


“Closer,” she encouraged.


He inched nearer the princess.


“Closer,” she repeated.


He frowned but complied until his nose was almost touching Luna’s. His muted blues staring into her bottomless sapphires with poorly concealed apprehension.


Luna smiled and twitched her head, tapping him on the head with her horn as a jolt of magic flashed. 


Like a stringless puppet, Shane collapsed on the deck. His unconscious form crumpled at Luna’s hooves, fast asleep. She beamed proudly over him.


Smiling happily, Luna scooped her human up on a cloud of starry magic and dumped him unceremoniously into the carriage. Pinkie Pie found the trickery highly amusing.  


Celestia’s hoof met her forehead. Luna’s cavalier attitude was going to come back to bite her at some point. She would have to have a talk with her sister about it very soon, but for now, they needed to get back to the castle. Already Celestia was feeling the unmistakable pull that told her the sun would soon need raising.  


Celestia stepped into her carriage. Luna had propped the human against the back, arranging his unconscious form so that he appeared to be merely napping. “He’s not going to be happy when he wakes up, you know,” Celestia warned.


“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Luna smiled knowingly. 


Celestia shook her head, unwilling to argue about it as the carriage began to move slowly toward the edge of the hangar. It sailed out into open air, diving down into the valley before leveling off and soaring into the still starry sky.



The ride back was relatively quiet. Shane was still out cold, sleeping deeply at Celestia’s hooves. All the girls were lost in their own thoughts. Luna stared into the expanse of night sky, no longer wearing her smug smile.


The amused titter of Pinkie Pie’s laughter broke the growing wall of silence. “Aaaw, look,” she pranced over to the sleeping human staring at him amusedly. She pointed a hoof at his boots, which were twitching rhythmically. “He’s dreaming he’s running!” 


No sooner than the words were spoken that Celestia cast an alarmed glance at her baby sister, who was still studiously staring into the night.


“Aww, ain’t that cute? Look at ‘im go.” AJ chuckled.


“Humans can dream?” Dash interjected, sounding genuinely surprised by the prospect. “I thought only ponies could dream.”


“Even dogs dream, Dash,” Twilight noted, “I wonder what a human dreams about,” Twilight mused out loud.


Luna finally broke out of her disinterested trance and her eyes glazed over the prone form of the sleeping human. “…It’s a nightmare, actually.” Luna noted quietly, returning her gaze into the distance, no traces of her former frivolity remained. 


All the girls looked to the lunar princess, waiting eagerly for some form of explanation. None of them knew how the princess could have possibly known. But the powers of an alicorn were hardly something one applied reason to. 


Celestia rested a golden hoof the human’s shoulder, comfortingly, but it didn’t seem to help. He continued to grimace and twitch in his sleep, as he fought with whatever unconscious demons assault the dreams of slumbering humans. 


The rest of the trip was silent. No longer was anypony laughing at the subtle twitches or unconscious reflexes of the sleeping human. 





~~~~