I stretched my back as I crouched down like a kitten stretching.
“Ah, nothing beats the ESS in comfort out in space!” I exclaimed with a start.
Navi laughed demonically, “Aha, no you don’t,” and she yanked my tail back to where she was into a sitting position, getting a yelp and a ‘hey!’ from me.
She rested her arm on top of my head as she looked down at me with a sinister atmosphere quickly shrouding her, “You won’t die, but when I’m done with you, I’ll make sure you wish you had a death.”
Skipper came from behind, “Keep your personal matters off-duty, we’re actually around other ponies, so don’t bring that crap flying around, got that crew?”
Both Navi and I did an actual salute, and attentively said, “Yes, sir!”
“Not that militant” Skipper muttered, and the both of us went down laughing, when we got up, I turned to Navi, “No hard feelings?”
Navi just laughed, “Both of us would be dead if we took all of this seriously.”
“No kidding.”
With that, we went through the air lock, and met the brown stallion that we were to meet.
“Long time, no see Aster,” Skipper said as she was the first through the lock, “I’m assuming you still remember my crew?”
She gestures to Navi and I, and Aster did a stern nod, “Of course, if you’ll follow me.”
I fell behind Skipper, and Navi whispered into my ear, “Damn, something big is up. Have you ever seen Aster that rigid?”
I shrugged, “I don’t think so, it’s probably because there’s some military officer inspecting his efficiency on the ESS.”
“Oh.”
We progressed down through the Plaza, since we had to go through it from our bay to reach the central command bridge of the station. We hustled through the various ebb and flows of the crowd. I heard a couple customers trying to barter a price for some miscellaneous item I couldn’t see clearly. Here and there, a bar appeared, and then there was Jazz’s security office. She wasn’t in there, typically, but this time, she was looking at her video screens intently.
“Yea, something’s up,” I whispered back to Navi, just loud enough to get over the noise of the crowd, and just quiet enough to be undetectable by Skipper, a few mere feet from me.
“What do you mean?”
I sighed, and quickly nodded over to Jazz’s office.
“Yea, Jazz is in her office, so?”
“When was the last time you saw her there, and not in one of the bars?”
Silence followed, in relative terms, and I assumed that she realized something was indeed up. Despite the new evidence of something happening, we kept going through the Plaza, evading any opposite flows of the crowd.
A couple minutes passed, and we were almost to the bridge, when Navi nudged me one more time, “Is it just me, or is the atmosphere of the place somewhat different?”
I pondered on this for a few steps, and then it suddenly hit me. I scanned the upper level, seeing various ponies with the emblem of the LIA on their jackets.
My eyes widened, “Shit, the military is here, that’s why everything’s different,” I said with a nervous tone and a rising panic in my voice.
Navi detected it, and asked in the same rise of panic, “What can an officer do to change the atmosphere?”
I didn’t need to explain it, as we stepped into the bridge, whose wall was lined with LIA soldiers. Each one of them had a rifle at hoof, and each one of them looked hostile, enough to kill anything that crossed one of them.
Navi quietly gasped in fear and shock, “What could possibly cause the LIA to institute marshal law, quietly no less?”
I couldn’t say anything, I was too stunned by the number of soldiers in the room, pondering why there would be a need for this number of them in here too.
I quickly came back to reality when Aster called out from his office, “Are you coming or not?”
I quickly realized I had stopped when I entered the room, and that Aster was already across the room to his own office, I shook my head subtly, and told him, “Yea, I’m coming.”
I put a hoof down to prevent Navi from going yet, “We’ll find out why they’re here right now.”
When she nodded, I turned to face the middle of the room, acknowledging I had to go through there, and not wanting to be in the sight of every one of those soldiers, the thought seemed terrifying. Nevertheless, I had a job, so I held my breath as I walked through the middle to the other side.
When I entered Aster’s office, I sighed a huge relief, as did Navi when she came through shortly after. It felt like a security check, and you thought you forgot something metallic, the thing was you had only one shot at it. The whole process was nerve-wracking, so when Aster called us over, we almost didn’t, we were still shaking so much.
“I’m glad you guys got here as fast you could, I appreciate that,” Aster still putting up a rigid front, but clearly relaxing a little bit, he sat into his chair, and gestured to the one chair opposite of him, “I suppose all three of you can’t sit there, I can call up for two more chairs?” He was already half-way up, when we refused his offer.
“We’re fine really, besides, we don’t want to fall off a chair when you give us the assignment, seems pretty big,” Skipper said observantly.
So she did notice the LIA soldiers; Aster chuckled, “I guess you guys could get the feeling this is big, and it kind of is.”
“Okay then, so what is..?” I was cut off abruptly.
“First I have to hear your individual pledges to the Equestrian Empire. Like Skipper said, this is big, and must be kept under wraps until the mission is accomplished, okay?” Aster said calmly.
All three of us were dead silent. I ran through my mind in class why they would ask for a pledge of individual ponies. The answer chimed in my head, if there was a catastrophic accident, or a terrorist infiltration, the procedure is to ask for the ponies’ pledge to both the Solar Princess and the Lunar Princess.
“Well?” Aster was rather impatient, most likely because we were being monitored, and if all three of us waited any longer, we would most likely be shot on sight, at least, that was my impression of the situation.
I stepped forward, and put a hoof up to the emblem on my jacket, “In the name of the Equestrian Empire, I hereby declare myself a loyal servant of the Alicorn Sisters, and declare my dying wish to have no harm come to them, the Empire, or its citizens.”
I stepped back, and the other two did the same thing, said the same thing, and then fell back in line.
Silence lapsed through the entire room, most likely for only a split second, but let me tell you, when your life is on the line, a heartbeat feels like a millennia. However, Aster started laughing as he neared us.
“Friends, I’m glad to have you aboard,” And with that, he hugged Skipper, then did a high-hoof with me, and hugged Navi, “I really do apologize for that, but, as we know, it’s”
“Procedure, we know,” All three of us said at the same time, cutting him off. And with that, all of us in the room broke out laughing again.
Once the laughter had died down, Aster let go of his rigid front and became the same young stallion we all knew him to be.
“So, how are you three?”
He turned to Skipper first, expectantly, and of course, she replies, finally relaxed, “My mother is still in the hospital from last week’s fall during the earthquake, I think my father is still fine, assuming his sleep in his grave is undisturbed.”
“I’m sorry about your mother,” Aster frowned, and after a few sentimental seconds, he turned to Navi, “And how about you, Miss Astro?”
She cleared her throat, as if annoyed, and after a few moments of being dumbstruck, Aster widened his eyes, “I must apologize, Misses Mapper, I keep forgetting you married that fine stallion a month back. Congratulation by the way.”
She beamed, “Thank you Aster, but other than that, nothing has really happened.”
“That’s unusual; considering this is you we’re talking about Navi…” Aster stated.
I snickered, which earned me a slap to the back of my head by Skipper, and then Aster’s grey eyes strayed over to me, “And how about you Starsky?”
I sighed, and recalled my month of shore leave. I remembered my visit to my parents, then my quick trip to my sister’s and got to catch up on how she was doing at the university she was teaching at. I then remembered me getting back to some of my friends that scattered throughout Equestria after graduation from high school, one was in Manehattan, and the others were in Ponyville. I did just about anything anypony would have done; I even went out to the Neighagra Falls for a couple days.
After the short reminiscing, I replied, “Absolutely nothing.”
Navi chided, “Liar.”
I stared her down, “Am not.”
Aster chimed in, nervously chuckling, “Okay, okay, so you didn’t do anything, that’s all good and dandy! Moving on!”
Skipper interrupted my stare down with Navi, and I noticed a brown blur of fur rushing over to the side of the office, to pull something rectangular out from under a window.
I shifted myself so I could get a better view of Aster while shrugging Skipper off of me, “So what is the mission?”
Aster pulled up the rigid veil again as he sternly gestured to the newly procured folder that was laying on top of the desk, “This, as I’ve said before, is very big, and not something I want to have out to the public, as it stands, this mission is classified.”
He opened the folder to present a single, white sheet of paper; he cleared his throat, and began reading the sheet.
May 20, 120 AT (After Twilight’s Ascension)
At approximately 0500 hours, an Ionic storm unleashed its brute on Equine. This storm had last far longer than any other, and far stronger than any recorded storm. The result were serious cases of IDI, and the ponies’ showed accelerated growth of the illness, possibly giving them only a week a best before it becomes permanent. If you can’t get relief out here before May 30, Celestia Help us.
-Lan, Governor of Equine Colony
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, but it was there, the worst case of IDI in the history of ponies. Skipper collapsed, probably remembering what it was like to see her dad die of IDI. It seemed Navi didn’t realize what IDI was.
Saving her the trouble, I explained, “IDI is short for Ionic Depolarization Illness, ponies started facing it 110 years ago, after the first sorties of space launches were sent, they contracted IDI. Where the synapses of your brain loses the ability to send messages along the pathways, because the ions of the neuron are destabilized, and can’t function probably; usually, a pony has a month to get the cure, which is a certain ionic transmitter that are super rare, highly classified, and can last for only a short amount of time. Past the deadline for the cure, the pony experiences the worst death imaginable. Where everything shuts down, one by one, your ability to feel, to hear, to see, to smell, to taste, and by then, you can’t even think anymore. In the end, you become a meat Popsicle.
Navi shuddered at most likely the thought of experiencing that, and then realized that the entire colony of Equine, with few exceptions, have contracted that.
“So that’s why our three-month long shore leave was cut to a month,” I observed.
Aster nodded, “Today is the 23rd, which is why I was grateful you could get here so soon, nevertheless, it’ll take a day at least for you guys to make it to Equine, assuming no anomalies come out of the blue and stall you.”
Skipper chuckled, “You make sound like they’re intentionally trying to stop us.”
The silence only supported Skipper’s statement. At that moment, I finally realized why the LIA soldiers were even standing outside.
“The few people who know of this believe this was a terrorist attack?” I said, betraying my growing panic.
Aster nodded, “It is a definite possibility; we usually can see an ion storm coming and warn Equine 3 or 4 days in advance. This one seemed as if it came out of nowhere, and not only that, but grew to be larger than any storm and fiercer than any storm on record.”
“So it’s not even it a question, it was a terrorist attack.”
Aster paused momentarily, and said, “Yes, it’s not a question anymore; we are assuming it was, and with good reason mind you.”
I acted in self-defense, “I was only stating the fact.”
Aster set the sheet of paper down, and looked across the desk, and asked us, “So, are you guys willing to be the relief team to send the cure to the Equinens? You have 4 days to get there, and 3 days to treat the ponies before the illness starts becoming permanent. Are you ready?”
Skipper sighed, and in place of her, I said, “More than we’ll ever be,” and I shook his hand.