Abyssinian System: En route to Abyssinian Prime
Free
She had been ejected from her medical bed three days ago. She agreed completely, somepony with flash burns over 80% of their body took serious priority over her recovery from Everfree sickness. Free Fall was even trying to lend a hoof in the med bay, when she wasn't violently emptying herself into a medical waste container. The medical staff didn't complain about her occasional eruptions, they needed all the help they could get.
The surprise attack had taken everypony by surprise. Injuries ranged all the way from burns to decompression sickness to injuries sustained when the emergency bulkheads had closed, they had come slamming down irregardless of whether ponies were in the way. Rumors were spreading through the ship like wildfire that Apparently things could have been significantly worse. The rumored reason the number of wounded wasn't double, or worse, was because an agent of the Alicorn Inquisition had predicted the attack and had informed the captain moments before they were fired upon.
She released a mournful sigh as she looked upon the unconscious form of the agent in question. The med techs said he had suffered severe cranial trauma and was in a coma. They didn't know when or even if he would wake up again. She had gotten to know Tracks quite well in the past year. Working together under Inquisitor Sophic Fortune they had completed dozens of hazardous missions successfully. For Tracks to be critically injured like this, in transit for a routine follow up mission, it just wasn't fair.
She had said as much to Devoid when he had come to visit. He had said something stupid about life not being fair. She had yelled at him, had said he was an uncaring monster and even almost hit him, but she had stopped when she had seen the pained expression in his eyes. She realized that Devoid had been working with Sophic for more years than Tracks And Free Fall combined and had probably seen very many ponies abruptly leave during his service. She felt extremely sad for him in that moment. He had quickly run off though so she hadn't had the chance to apologize. That had been two days ago. Now she just sat and watched Tracks while wallowing in her own guilt and sorrow.
She looked around at the med bay and took everything in. The stainless steel walls, the white sheets, the sounds of painful moans and groans, the overwhelming smell of disinfectant. She realized how much she hated the place. But still she found herself pushing trays filled with replacement bandages and equipment, talking with patients as they recovered- or didn't, and, always, when she was too tired to stand or felt another wave of irrepressible nausea approaching, she would find herself sitting across from his bed, waiting.
Her reverie was interrupted by a presence to her side. She looked over with a sluggishness, born of the fatigue which sleeping in a chair for three days can produce. Bloodshot eyes looked into hers. Apparently wherever Devoid had been getting his sleep hadn't been any more comfortable than the chair she had commandeered. She started to open her mouth, but was moved into silence when she saw that his hoof was extended towards her.
She looked into the hoof and gasped as what she saw. "Is. Is that?"
"Yes. My last piece. Now it's yours." His face was attempting something resembling a smile but, he was obviously out of practice, it resembled a sneer or wince more than anything. She held out her hoof, surprised by the gesture. Devoid never did anything like this, he was always too busy being edgy or snarky to try to apologize or make nice.
She took the proffered item, a piece of Grazerian chocolate in the shape of a feather. It wasn't just any chocolate. The master chocolatiers of the confectionary planet used some ridiculous number of secret ingredients and had pegasi air whip the resulting mixture until it was quite possibly the airiest, fluffiest, tastiest chocolate in the entire sector.
Eight months ago they had been given a small quantity of the highly expensive treat for their assistance in defending the planet from a parasprite invasion. Free Fall had never tasted anything as good in her entire life and had managed to go through her supply in only a few days. The others had mercilessly teased her in the following months, usually by slowly eating one of the chocolate feathers right in front of her.
"But-" She knew that, as much as she wanted to scarf the feather down right that instant, she was the one who owed him the apology. She started to try to apologize again but Devoid wasn't having any of it.
"Look, just eat it already. It's for all the times I teased you about it too, ok?" He wouldn't even look at her now. He was starting to get all edgy again.
"Dev?" She said it quietly.
"Yeah?" He said as he turned around.
She was already in the air before he could respond and she wrapped her hooves around him in a hug. His body went completely rigid for a moment before he too wrapped his hooves around her. "Thanks, Dev." She said.
"Well, what are friends for?" Was his response, which was perhaps the most sincere thing she had ever heard him say. They shared a quiet moment together, taking strength in each other's presence.
"I see how it is, no love for the injured."
Free Fall spun and saw Tracks, sitting up in bed, eyeing them with a look of cheer interlaced with sporadic shooting pain. She immediately released the embrace, feeling a hot flush creep into her cheeks. Even Devoid seemed to have turned a little red, although he seemed to be hiding the rest of his embarrassment rather well. "Oh, c'mon, don't stop on my account! Wait, why are you two looking at me like that?" He winced as she approached the side of his bed, most likely expecting a braining for the comments. He obviously couldn't see the mummified state his head was in.
She carefully wrapped her hooves around the reclining form of Tracks and gave him a tentative hug. When he didn't shriek out in pain, she tightened the embrace. Devoid had approached on the other side and, after looking around to ensure that all the other patients were unconscious or otherwise not paying attention, joined in on the group hug. "Don't scare us like that, Boss." She could barely hear Devoid's whisper.
As they pulled away she could see that Tracks was giving them both an odd look. "What's with all the mushiness, anyways? How long was I out for? Only a few hours, right?" His eyes went wide when Devoid stated in a matter-of-fact tone the amount of time that had passed. "Three days? Sweet Celestia, three whole days..." His voice trailed off. "What happened?"
The next few hours were spent describing both how he obtained the injury and the Accord's miraculous escape from the death trap set by the timber wolf class raider. For some unknown reason Tracks found that little factoid to be hilarious. He managed to laugh despite the pain it obviously put him in. The medical technician was not nearly as amused when he came in and saw that his patient was trying to be more active than what was medically advisable.
- - - - - - - - - -
Double
The pain was intense. Ever since the moment she had woken up. She had broken a wing and suffered some serious burns when her console had detonated. Like an idiot, she'd refused the pain medications they had offered. She had her reasons, though she couldn't think what they possibly could have been as she blinked the tears from her eyes. She only knew her goal: To escape from the med bay. The doctors had refused first her requests and then her demands for release. Thankfully they hadn't decided to restrain her. Yet. Worse still, her compatriots were with the enemy, they had told her to listen to her doctor and get some bed rest. Traitors, they were all traitors.
So, she had waited until Sens had returned to the bridge and Air Wave had passed out until she made her move. She tried to ignore the sensation of her bandages pulling at her skin and coat as she slowly removed the sheets and carefully lowered herself off of the bed. She was gritting her teeth from the sensation of forcing the disuse from her muscles. Once she had successfully gotten to all fours, she started for the sheet that she was pretty sure marked the exit to the med bay.
When she pulled the drapery aside, she found himself looking at a gaggle of ponies in doctor coats sitting and sipping recaff. As a single entity, over a dozen pairs of eyes looked up at the new intruder - to the doctors' lounge. "Oh, for clop's sake." She muttered as at least two physicians she knew realized that they also knew her. She didn't give them the chance to stand up and bolted in the opposite direction. She heard the shouts behind her and knew she needed to find the way out before she got caught, and probably sedated and restrained. She would never live that one down.
As she continued moving through different partitions and dividers she heard the noises closing in on her. She wasn't going to win this race. She cursed her stiff joints and aching muscles. She cursed how she had never taken Vector up on her offer to exercise by running laps around the lower levels of the ship. She cursed doctors and medical bays and - suddenly she felt a hoof clamp across her muzzle and another around one of her forelegs. She was forcibly dragged past a hanging divider and into somepony's ad hoc room. A voice made a long drawn out hissing of a shush in her ear. A few moments passed and then so did the small throng of medical personnel that had decided to chase her.
Once the threat had passed, Double felt the hooves release her. She carefully turned around, she was curious to see who had "saved" her. The first thing that struck her about her savior was was a pair of cat-yellow eyes. Then she saw the horn and gasped. She knew the only unicorn on ship, the navigator, and this pony was not them. Nor was the second unicorn she spied in the recovery bed. The one who had grabbed her was a jet black, the one in the bed was a strangely familiar shade of purple, underneath the small sea of bandages at any rate. She barely registered the cyan pegasus in the chair at the bedside.
The unicorn in the bed was looking at her with a pair of crimson eyes that were filled with curiosity. She knew she had seen them before, but where? She gasped again as her mind caught up with her. "You!" Her statement caused the purplish unicorn's eyebrows to raise. "I know you!" She had no idea why she was accusing this strange pony of knowing her, it was almost a compulsion. "You were in my dream!"
At this comment, the unicorn's expression changed completely. He sat up in his bed despite the obvious pain it caused him. His eyes narrowed as he spoke. "That's impossible."
She continued to speak, undaunted by his declaration. "The cute little things, they almost ate us both!" With that statement his expression altered again, to one of confusion and disbelief. "And then... And then She was there!" At this, the unicorn held up his hoof in a motion for her to stop talking.
When he spoke again, it was with an air of command that he had seemingly conjured out of thin air. He commanded the two who had been with him, "Dev" and "Free" to find somewhere else to be. Then he introduced himself as "Tracks." He began to ask her all manner of questions regarding her life, and oddly enough, her dreams. She didn't know why but she felt compelled to answer all of his questions. At first she thought it was unicorn sorcery, but his horn wasn't glowing, and it looked like he was wearing a magical inhibitor on his left fore-leg.
She felt she needed to get a question of her own into the mix before he moved onto some embarrassing portion of her past. "Why are you interrogating me?" She blurted out after answering a question about her acquaintances from the officers' school she had attended. The serious look that had been affixed to his face since he had begun questioning her melted into a friendly smile.
"I'm an Interrogator. It's what I do." He said matter-of-factly. She was pretty sure she had blanched at the statement. He was one of the Inquisition agents. "I am very interested in you, Miss Double Arc." And he knew her name, even though she could not remember having mentioned it during the little interview he had just conducted. "How do you feel about the Inquisition, Miss Double Arc?"
If any color had remained in her face, she felt it leave at that moment. She immediately began to stutter out what the officers' academy had hammered into them about dealing with the Inquisition. "No, no, no, no!" Tracks wore a look of disappointment now. "If I wanted the textbook answer I'd have picked up a data slate." He leaned forwards with a sharp wince. "What do you think of the Inquisition? Be honest, I will not judge your opinions."
She thought for a moment. He sounded sincere, but she couldn't shake the feeling that a "wrong" answer would land her some kind of punishment. "You ensure stability of Equestria through fear of retribution." She started shakily. Now for the hard part. "I think that's wrong." If he were going to condemn her, it would be now.
Instead, he voiced another query. "Why is it wrong?"
Emboldened, she stated. "I've been in the navy for 5 years, and I have never seen fear of retribution put a threat down for good, only suppress it." She watched as the corners of Tracks' mouth curled back up into a smile again.
"Excellent." He seemed to suddenly be in extremely good cheer. "So, how would you like to become an agent of the Royal Sisters' most Holy Alicorn Inquisition?"
She felt her rump impact the floor. "What?" Was all she could manage.