//------------------------------// // Lost in Space // Story: Rainbow Dash: Space Pirate // by Wooden Entity //------------------------------// Quickly after their spectacular escape everything calmed down on board of Tank again. Rainbow Dash went down to the artifact to think over its fate leaving the bridge to a slightly less than usual drunken Cleaver and a peacefully snoring Applejack while Hazard Haze and the rest of Rainbow Dash's crew went to their quarters. It was still a long journey and everyone could use some rest. The empty ship almost seemed boring for Scootaloo weren't there a certain pony which was half machine. "And what are your captain's plans now?" Cold Bone asked. Scootaloo guided him along the corridors of the cruiser from his quarter to the cargo bay. Rainbow Dash offered him shelter after the destruction of Sanctuary. As far as she and Scootaloo knew he didn't have a place to stay. That was the problem if you worked together with outlaws: in the end you always were on your own, though after her sister told her what happened on Sanctuary Scootaloo didn't know what to think about him. "She's still thinking about whether to bring the artifact to princess Twilight or to dump it somewhere in space." Scootaloo answered. She already asked him about his abilities, but he was just dodging her questions every time. Well, she still had other ways to get her answers. "Scootaloo I know that you are scanning me with your computer. Stop it." Cold Bone said. Oops... "Oh, come on. Your body is fascinating, just allow me to get a little bit information!" She begged while she kept analyzing him. She just had to understand his technology. Nothing could stop her curiosity now. "If you don't stop it immediately I have to take that thing away from you, Scoots." Cold Bone warned her. Suddenly she stopped walking and her eyes widened. Her first scan was finished and revealed something she would have never expected. "Oh my god..." She whispered. "Are you ..." Her head went up from her tablet to face Cold Bone. "... a Creator?" Cold Bone stopped and stood up on his hind legs. "You just couldn't stop, huh?" He asked. Cold Bone turned around revealing his furious face before he went towards her. He pulled her up on her throat and pushed her against the wall. "If you ever tell anybody about this I promise I will make your's and Rainbow Dash's life very, very miserable! Do you understand?!" He yelled at her. She tried to answer but she could barely breath with his hoof on her throat. "Okay ... okay ..." Suddenly Cold Bone eyes widened and he let go of her before he went down on his hooves again. "Oh my god, are okay?" Cold Bone asked concerned. Coughing and catching for breath she looked up to him and nodded. His face looked shocked. "I'm so sorry, Scoots. I didn't mean to hurt you." Cold Bone laid his hoof on her shoulder. "I swear that I won't harm you or your sister, but please promise me that you don't tell anybody about this, okay?" "Okay." He helped her up on her hooves. "It is just, that ... it is not only my life that depends on this ..." Cold Bone said. "So there are more like you, Creators?" Scootaloo asked. "Actually we aren't Creators at all. We just have access to their technology." Scootaloo took a look on her tablet computer again and studied the files from her scan. "You can keep them if you want. Just make sure nobody else reads them." Cold Bone said. "Thank you." Her scans made it very clear. Cold Bones technology had the same origin as the one of the portals and artifact but some things about her results made her quite confused. "No offense, Cold Bone ..." She said cautiously. "... but could it be that your body is somewhat ... outdated?" "Outdated ..." Cold Bone had to chuckle. "... you could call it like that. Told you that I ain't a creator." He moved on to the cargo bay followed by Scootaloo. Originally she intended to guide him through the ship but it seemed like he was well aware of their way. In the cargo bay Rainbow Dash already awaited them. She stood before the artifact scratching her chin reflectively. Scootaloo and Cold Bone walked over to her. "So, are we going to Twilight or do we dump this thing in space, sis?" Scootaloo asked. "I don't know, Scoots." She said somewhat exhausted. "This thing is causing us nothing but trouble, but somehow I get the feeling that it is way too important to just dump it." "So ... Twilight?" "Eyup." While the two mares were talking Cold Bone walked on his hind legs around the artifact in some distance and studied it carefully. Scootaloo thought that she heard him saying something. "Where are you, buddy?" "Huh?" She asked. "Nothing. I was just talking to myself." He answered. Cold Bone walked closer to the artifact and slowly reached out with his hoof for it. Suddenly a strange arc of light shot out of the artifact and connected with him. Around his hoof a ring of metal grow from its surface and slowly went along his arm followed by another ring. As the first ring went over his body it changed its shape. His hoof became a hand and his fur was replaced by a light skin. For a moment even his face was completely changed though Scootaloo could only get a short look on it because the second ring restored his original shape quickly after, but it was extremely flat and seemed to lack a muzzle at all. After everything was over Cold Bone leaned his head into the back and sighed. "Aww crap..." "Can I ... tell her now?" Scootaloo asked with in a mixture of shock and triumph. "Yeah ..." He turned his head to her and gave her a surrendering expression. "... there's probably no sense in hiding anymore, huh?" "Could you please explain me what the hell just happened and what you are talking about?" Rainbow Dash finally asked the two. "His body uses old creators technology though he claims to not be one of them." Scootaloo explained. "Used..." Cold Bone said. "What?" Cold Bone held his hoof in front him and examined it. For Scootaloo it looked like always but it seemed like something had changed for him. "I think this thing just updated me." Cold Bone looked at his hoof again before suddenly a glowing crystalline sword similar to the artifact appeared on its back. "Wow!" Scootaloo shouted excited. Scootaloo was absolutely sure that she had to do another scan of his body soon. Even if her equipment wasn't advanced enough to tell her everything she wanted to know, it told her at least something. "No..." She heard him murmur while his sword disappeared. His eyes looked empty as he continued to repeat the word. "No, no, no, no ..." "What is it?" She Scootaloo asked him. "No, no, no!" Cold Bone said rapidly. "Fuck, god damnit! I waited 200000 fucking years and the first trail I got in them, is now already 30000 years old! GAHH!" He punched with his fore hooves on the upper side of the artifact. "FUCK, FUCK, FUCK!!!" "Hey, stop that, okay?!" Rainbow Dash yelled at him while she approached him. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" Cold Bone still standing on his hind hooves suddenly turned around to her and pointed with his hoof on her. "Just shut your mouth! I'm so freaking pissed right now and I could literally rip you and that trash can, you call a ship, apart if you bug me any more. Just leave me alone, okay?" Cold Bone said before he went off to the door. "Just let me calm down and I explain everything to you later." Before Rainbow Dash could even ask herself what just happened a weak concussion went through the ship followed by a message from Cleaver over the speakers. "Captain, we just fell out of FTL-speed!" Rainbow Dash went over to a terminal in the wall. "What happened?" She asked him. Scootaloo was pretty sure that she knew the answer to this question: her child of sorrow she was working on for weeks now. "The FTL-drive stopped working, looks like one of the capacitors blew up." "I'm going down to the engine room and take a look, Rainbow Dash." Scootaloo said before she left the cargo bay. "And where are we now?" Rainbow Dash asked. "Middle of nowhere I'm afraid. The nearest system is in a few light years distance." That was the fundamental problem with FTL-traveling. When you had a problem you were very fast in deep shit. Without any portals in range you weren't going anywhere when the FTL-drive stopped working. You were stranded. "Great, just great." Rainbow Dash said to herself. "Captain, the sensors have detected something in range. It looks like an old ship wreckage." Cleaver said. **************************************** "What the?" Somepony asked behind Rainbow Dash who was sitting in her chair on the bridge, where she was pretty much alone. The only pony bearing her company was the still snoring Applejack on a stool to her left. "Calmed down?" She asked the approaching Cold Bone. "Now that I see this - yes." He answered. "You probably noticed that we fell out of FTL-speed. Scoots says, that this was caused by some kind of weird energy field and its center seems to lie in this ship. Damn thing broke our engine." Rainbow Dash was still astonished of the size of the ship. As they went closer to it with Tank it filled out the windows of the bridge completely. She knew that her ship wasn't very big in compare with its 450m length but this was just ridiculous. This vessel was more than 2 kilometers long. The only ship she ever heard of that could be bigger was the Dawn, the capital ship of the two sisters. "Couldn't you have told me, that you found this thing, earlier?" He said pointing outside the window. "Why? Don't tell me its from the Creators and that you can fly it.?" Rainbow Dash asked. Its design made it pretty obvious that it wasn't created by ponies or griffins. It didn't resemble any of the their characteristic design elements. Pony vessels usually were quite colorful and used a very organic shape with many curves and round forms creating every time some kind of piece of art while griffins tended to a more industrial design with cold colors and many edges and corners. This vessel instead was completely metalic and formed like a real ship swimming on the water. Its long rump tapered to its bottom and had two side elements at its rear third making it somehow looking like a catamaran. Around the front two-thirds of the rump were five rings in equally distance to each other. Cold Bone started to chuckle. "Actually, that the case." "What?" Cold Bone walked over to one of the terminals in front of Rainbow Dash's chair. "Seems like this is my lucky day after all." He said eventually after clicking around on the monitor. "You know that you still owe me an explanation for what happened earlier with you and the artifact." "Yeah, yeah ... wanna take a stroll with me to that ship? I tell you everything on the way." Cold Bone said pointing at the ship wreckage. "I need to find my girl friend." "Your what?!"