Cryo-7

by Metal Pony Fan

Overhangs Hanging Over the Hungover

"Ah feel like dirt," Mac mumbled.

"He's up," said a young stallion's voice, "Ribbon?"

"Oh, good!" Said an excited young mare.

Mac rolled over, smacking his slow and sticky tongue. He was strapped down to a table, underneath a large scanning arm, but still had some freedom of movement. It seemed like the straps were to keep him from falling off, not to restrain him.

He was in the white room again, but he wasn't under anesthesia like last time. As such, he had no delusion that he had died and moved on. The dull aching of his entire body reinforced that conclusion.

A big white colt with a blue mane nervously watched him move. His lip was busted, and he seemed wary. "You aren't going to freak out again, are you?"

"What are you talkin' bout?" Mac started unstrapping himself, hooves feeling like he was tying knots in a bucket of molasses. His hungover mind idly wondered if molasses was still a thing. "Why am I here? Did Ah drink too much? James said Ah could have some if Ah had plenty a' water with it."

"That wouldn't have helped in this case." The colorful unicorn mare Mac remembered from his first visit to the station came over with a small canister in tow. She held it up, and sprayed a small puff in Mac's face. It smelled like hairspray, but didn't sting. "Electrolytic saline, rehydrates the mucous membranes. It will help with the dry mouth and eye irritation."

Mac nodded slowly. "Ya know-"

"I know," Ribbon sighed. "I'm sorry I lied. I didn't know you were friends with my mom. There's a lot of things I can't just tell everypony who asks. I hope you understand that."

Mac sighed too, but when he opened his mouth again, Ribbon cut in, "Thank you. And in case Radio didn't say it, thank you, from him too." Mac raised an eyebrow, and Ribbon looked confused. "What's efficient?"

Mezzo tapped her on the shoulder. She wasn't letting him talk.

"Oh!" She winced at the colt's unspoken rebuke. "Sorry, go ahead."

Mac nodded slowly. "Why am Ah here?"

"You're recovering from the implant surgery," Ribbon said happily. "We've been monitoring your vital signs, and your recovery is pretty tremendous. Your new kidney is in, a little early due to circumstances, and functioning at roughly sixty percent. A few days for it to settle in, and you'll never know it wasn't the original."

"Hey, um," Mezzo leaned past Ribbon, "do you feel up to having a visitor? The yellow mare that recovered first seemed pretty worried about you."

"Fluttershy?" Mac tried to sit up, but it felt like an iron bar was holding him back. He looked down to see Ribbon's hoof held out over him.

"I'm stronger than I look," she said, mildly distracted by the readout on the table. "I'm going to have James double check, but by these readings, I don't see any reason why he can't leave soon."

"Ah ain't that hungover," Mac chuckled. "How much did Ah drink? No matter how strong, one bottle of vodka ain't enough to knock me down this hard."

Ribbon looked down at him. He didn't remember any of the last twenty-five hours. "One bottle is more than enough when it's mixed with half a dozen random drugs." She would let James tell him about his heart stopping. "You're lucky to be alive right now."

"It was drugged?" Mac sat up quickly, paying the price in a rush of blood and the sudden splitting pain of a headache. He pressed his hoof to his head, but grit his teeth and rolled off the table. "Where's Fluttershy? Is she ok?"

He found himself being lifted and dumped back on the table.

Even knowing about Ribbon's genetic engineering, Mezzo was impressed, watching the tiny nurse manhandle a stallion twice her size. "Just how strong are you?"

"Strong enough," Ribbon shrugged. "Now, Mac, I'm sure Fluttershy would appreciate the concern, but you were hit much worse than she was. I'll let her in as soon as I finish my scans."

"A'ight," Mac conceded with a groan. All that movement took a lot out of him. So, he adjusted, making himself comfortable on the table.

But then, he had a horrible thought, and Ribbon winced at the thought of having to answer it. She wasn't able to put her words together before Mac asked, "What kind of drug?"

"Exactly what you're thinking, sadly," she answered quietly. "And, yes, it was meant for Berry."

"Ah, hell, Ah should'a known." He brought his hoof back to his head. "She kept lookin' over her shoulder, and didn't want ta be alone. I ignored it 'cause she was smilin' and brought a gift from the bar."

"Not from the bar," Ribbon corrected, "she drank that one, according to witnesses. It seems the vodka was given to her by somepony else." She felt the stallion's anger rise, saw his blood pressure increase on the readout, and she caught a glimpse of how this would be handled in a small, pre-industrial township. It wasn't pretty. "She already beat the snot out of him. He was arrested in a hospital on the surface."

"Good," Mac snorted. "Is she ok? Where is she?"

"That..." The nurse sighed. "That's a longer story."

"What do ya mean?" Mac asked the nurse. Ribbon glanced over at Mezzo, not sure if she should tell the stallion everything, or wait for Growl. "What do you mean?" He repeated louder, having seen the silent exchange. He jumped off the table, and when Ribbon went to push him back up, he grabbed her hoof. "Where is Berry?"

Her free hoof grabbed the one holding her, yanking it free, but he grabbed it right back, leaving their hooves tangled as they silently wrestled. Both ponies grit their teeth, but the only sound was the occasional grunt as each vied for some sort of leverage to break the stalemate.

It was Mac who broke the silence, lowering his head towards the young mare he, "Remember, Ah'm injured right now."

Ribbon swallowed hard. That wasn't meant to make her hold back or go easy on him. It was simply to remind her that he was currently in a very weakened state. "And I'm holding back," she growled, staring him down, realizing he was fully ready to call her bluff, even though he recognized that it wasn't a bluff. This pony was incredibly smart, and an idiot all at once, but it was all out of worry, fierce, protective, worry, and fear, and helplessness. Painful, unbreakable helplessness in an unforgiving, lifeless world of metal walls, metal ponies, and isolation from everything he knew. Was it impossible? Was there nothing he could do? He already failed to protect her once.

Ribbon locked up in pain as Mac's memory of the attack on the Philomena reached the part where he got shot. Luckily, the fight had drained out of him a moment ago, or he would have immediately overpowered the nurse. She was too busy reliving him getting stabbed in the kidney, and trying to remind herself to breath.

It took her a moment to recover, and in that time, Mac had lowered his head into his hooves. Conflicting emotions ran through him as he grabbed his mane. Anger, at himself, at those who attacked him and his, both now and in the past. Opponents that, for all his strength, were outside his reach.

"Radio's gone to find her," Ribbon finally conceded.

Fresh worry stabbed at the stallion's thoughts. "She's missin'?"

"She was abducted. There was some sort of struggle in an out of the way corridor, and Lilybelle, one of my friends, was stunned. None of the blood they found was hers or Berry's. And, she got a message to Radio with the coordinates where she was being taken. He's gone after her."

"Alone?"

"Trust me, he can handle himself."

Mac shook his head. "How can you be sure?"

"He wasn't Furia's entire orbital defense for nothing."

Mac nodded slowly. He didn't get a chance to interact with the colorful colt for long, but it seemed he was another amazing pony to add to the bunch, leaving him well and far behind. There wasn't anything he could do, not in this condition. "Can ya speed up mah healin'? I may be a relic, but Ah beat yer planet's androd pretty easily. Ah can help if Ah get get better."

"What if there's nothing to help with? And it's android." Everypony looked towards the operating room's entrance. Growl had just entered, pad hanging from a lanyard around her neck, and she waved in somepony outside. "I just received a call from the leaders of the group the group that took Berry."

"They makin' demands yet," Mac growled, "or just tellin' us they have her?"

"Quite the opposite," Growl stepped out of the way as Fluttershy walked in, "they wanted to apologize. For the abduction, stunning Lily, everything."

Fluttershy walked over to Mac. She moved slowly, too nervous to touch him in case he wasn't feeling well.

"He's fine," Ribbon reassured her, "and feeling much better than he should be."

"Ah'm good, Shy," Mac added, holding out a hoof. "You?"

She moved in, hugging him as he wrapped his outstretched hoof around her. "Better," she sighed, "wass-scared."

"You should both be dead," Growl said with a hint of sarcasm, "eight doses of illegal drug cocktail each by body weight. If that didn't put you down, nothing will."

"But, ya got the guy, right?" Mac nodded in Ribbon's direction. "She said he was arrested on the surface."

Growl nodded. "Seeking treatment for Berry caving his face in with the bottle she then gave you." She shrugged. "At least she didn't kill him."

"She wouldn't do that," Mac quickly defended.

"Not intentionally, I believe that much at least." Growl walked over, and held up her pad. "But, you are aware her grandfather was a pirate, right? A powerful, influential, and most of all, ruthless, one? Here's a video from Berry's abduction. The group that took her is called the White Flags, and they are professional bounty hunters. She kicked their asses. They hijacked our security camera feeds and fed looped signals through, but kept the original videos to document the capture."

Mac stared at the pad a moment. He wasn't sure he even wanted to see it. "Even if she's related to a pirate, Berry ain't one herself. She wouldn't hurt anypony unless she was forced."

"I already said, I believe that." Growl gave the pad a little shake. "But, I'm saying she may be more capable of hurting somepony than we, or she, may even realize. And just wait until you see what Radio did."

Ribbon groaned quietly. "This isn't going to be good, is it?"

"Well, they aren't keeping him locked up, despite him attacking their soldiers." Growl shrugged. "Their princess is more lenient than I would be if somepony managed to take out fifty of our guards before being subdued. Then again, we don't even have fifty guards."

"Fifty?" Ribbon grabbed her head as if she was getting ready to send a psychic message across the galaxy. "Damn it! Radio! Surgical strikes! Stealth! Didn't you pay any attention in hostage rescue training?" She looked up as everypony stared, and they were all thinking the same thing. "No," she answered with some embarrassment, "I don't expect that to actually reach him."

"So, why are they apologizing?" Mezzo asked. "If they believed they were in the right, enough so to abduct somepony, what made them change their mind?"

"It seems their Princess is the one that made the decision." Growl smiled. "In the biggest stroke of dumb luck ever, it turns out she's from the same place you are. Do either of you know a unicorn named Rarity?"

"Rarity?!" Fluttershy shouted, the loudest word out of her mouth since boarding the station. "Where? Call! Can you call?"

"Rares is a friend of ours," Mac added, relief settling his nerves and setting a smile on his face, "and of Rainbow and Pinkie, she'll make sure Berry and Radio are safe."

"Yes! Rarity, good." Fluttershy grabbed Growl's pad and held it up. "Call!"

"Calm down." Growl took the pad back. "She's going to call us back in about an hour. She has some important business to take care of in the meantime. If you're up to it, we'll set up in the conference room on level four. I want to try and see if anypony else on the station knows her. That's what your little group is about, right? Reuniting old friends?"

Fluttershy nodded quickly. That was a good idea, and not just for this occasion. Countless ponies must be wondering if their friends and loved ones were out there somewhere. And the chance to see and speak to them might bring happiness and much needed closure. "Paper, I make lisst."

"You'll need station records too," Ribbon added, being the only one that understood the depths of the altered pegasi's plan. "I can help you with that."

"I'll leave it to you two then," Growl said with a nod. "We meet at my office in forty minutes. In the meantime, I need to borrow Mezzo."

"Me?" The mentioned colt looked over in confusion. "What for?"

The older nurse nodded towards the door, keeping her mind carefully blank. A skill she picked up naturally from knowing Ribbon. "I just need to talk to you, come on."

---

Halfway across the galaxy, a colt woke with a start, shouting a single word, "Stealth!" Scaring his temporary roommate awake. With a snort and a cough, he immediately settled back down , out like a light.

Little Juki, finding it a little harder to go back to sleep muttered to himself, "Why are all of my family's friends so weird?"

Comments

[EasyBreeze]

Halfway across the galaxy, a colt woke with a start, shouting a single word, "Stealth!" Scaring his temporary roommate awake. With a snort and a cough, he immediately settled back down , out like a light.

looks like somepony's ears were burning!

[Asimov_Law]

Twilight-Check
Rainbow-Check
Rarity-Check
Fluttershy-Check
Pinkie-Check
Applejack-?

I'm betting AJ's the one up for auction.

[Meehan8615]

Wow Ribbon jest wow

[Meehan8615]

10165066
It has to be

[Foxfax]

OK, who wants to tell the idiot auction house lawyer that they're committing an act of slavery for selling what they know to be a sophont? Hope their world doesn't have robust anti-slavery laws or, museum or no museum, everyone involved including the lawyer is going to jail. And that's if RD (any of the current three) isn't involved by then.

[HF Fury]

10165066

10165082
There's also still several other options considering Derpy and Dinky. I don't think we've even seen what happened to the CMC yet.

[Xanderfox]

10165352
We forget Spike? Though by this chapter it's pretty obvious he's the Eldest Elder Dragon, so we've met at least two of his several hundred grandkids.