I am a Bug, and I'm Digging a Hole.
Kathy shaded her faceted eyes with a leg as she searched the sky for clouds. There were none, and she was regretting not packing a bonnet of some sort. "There sure is a lot of sun, sir."
Captain Nova took a break from unloading the small shuttle he and Kathy took down to the surface of Sevus. "I second that observation," he said, wiping his face with a sleeve, "but it's better than contaminated rain." They were parked in front of Berry's old house, a makeshift building made from the wreckage of several ships, and nestled in a junkyard containing countless more. Nova pointed at the house, at a small bench beneath the shade of an overhanging piece of sheet metal. "We can take a break before we get to work. Just let me get the Ground Penetrating Radar unit unloaded."
"Of course, sir." The beetle scurried out of the way as the biped went back for a bulky, but lightweight metal case. "Do you really think we'll find Norland's body out here?"
"I have no reason to doubt Princess Rarity, or miss Berry." It was an awkward dance, getting the case out the shuttle's door without bumping into anything, but there was some sort of energy damper in place in the area, and the antigrav sleds they brought were inoperable. As were the personal comms, weapons, and digging equipment. The shuttle and all its systems were fine, as were handheld scanners, leading them to the hope that the radar would still work. A quick analysis of the effected equipment showed a narrow band of power levels, being disrupted, and anything above or below that was untouched. Their best guess was that the field was meant purely to disable any weapons. "Do you think we can find the source of the dampening field, and disable it?"
"I'll try and scan for it." She grabbed a portable scanner, and hurried over to shade. She disliked solar radiation. It couldn't harm her, especially at these low levels, but it was still uncomfortable. She was just glad there was an atmosphere between her and the star this time. "Um, sir..."
She had glanced down at the scanner, and noticed something that shouldn't be there.
Nova set the case down with a grunt. "What is it?" He asked as he opened the case and inspected the equipment for damage. "K'tthia?"
He stood up as she distractedly scuttled away from shade. With an exasperated sigh, and sparing a longing glance at the bench, he started following her. He grabbed a canteen from the supplies as he passed them, and took a swig as he walked around the house.
He found his first mate standing before a trio of stones.
"Sir," she said, staring at them, "these are headstones."
"Yes," he confirmed before walking over. "Berry's family." He kneeled down before them, canteen still uncapped in his hand. "Forgive me, it was rude of me to drink first." He poured a little water in front of each stone, then offered the canteen to K'tthia.
She held out her foreleg, and the captain poured some out for her. She carefully cleared the liquid off before speaking up, "an interesting custom, sir."
"No one should drink alone, even the dead." He smirked. "Norland would appreciate the sentiment."
"Would he, sir?"
"Of course, he would." Nova stood up, dusting off his knees. "He and I once shared a drink like this over our master's grave. Only, we pissed on it instead of sharing."
"Pissed?" K'tthia's eye-lenses shifted, focusing on the captain. That had to be the most vulgar word she had ever heard from him. A sailor-mouth, he was not. "Sir, you knew him? Personally?"
"He was as close to family as I ever had." Nova looked over with a smile. "Besides you, of course."
"Glad to hear it." The beetle raised a limb towards one of the stones. "This one is his?"
"Yeah..." Nova leaned down and brushed the emblem clean. "That's his cutie mark. He was always good with electronics, especially the older stuff. He got me hooked on those old flat screens, when we were still..." He looked down, considering how much to tell his comrade, and quickly decided that he wouldn't hide anything, not from her. "When we were still owned by that mining consortium."
Nova sat down. "It's hard to believe that was all seventy years ago." He patted the stone. "We couldn't have taken more different paths."
"Sir, weren't you chosen to lead a task force to capture him fifty years ago?"
"Who better?" Nova shrugged. "I came the closest to capturing him, too. I think I still have that handful of feathers in my desk somewhere. Took down a few of his generals after he disappeared, too. And, some of his competition. I knew him best. How he thought, how he organized, even his true goals." With a chuckle, he confided, "not a single article or documentary I've seen has gotten it right yet."
Kathy idly adjusted the settings on her scanner, though by now, she was more interested in the captain's story. "You've never told me this. What was his true goal?"
"I've never told anybody this," Nova corrected her. "He wanted truth. He saw the gaps in history, the wide spread of pony civilization, and the mismatched histories, and realized there must be something hidden there."
"Doesn't everybody?" Kathy asked. "Unlike humans, or curraxans, who have well documented histories that are nearly unbroken from millenia before space travel, or my planet, which has a historical record carefully maintained since the invention of language, pony history is horribly fractured. As are the histories of the dragons, gryphons, changelings, and a few others."
Nova nodded slowly. "Almost like they all got broken into tiny groups, and scattered across the galaxy."
Had she been capable, Kathy would have gasped. Instead, she stared quietly, waiting for the captain to continue.
"That's exactly what happened, by the way. I've spoken with the pony responsible." He laughed. "How ironic, that I would be the one to learn the truth, and meet the one he searched for. He was the one who figured out how to access the computer, who realized those ships' origin, and true value. He was the one who showed me her picture." He sighed. "She was much more impressive in person, and that reminds me, I still haven't told you the story."
"The Sun and Moon one, sir?"
"Yes, that one." The Captain stood up again. "I'll tell you while we work. A radar scan, and a small bone sample taken with the drill wire should be enough to issue a certificate of death. What did you find on the scanner?"
She held the device out to him. "An active power source, roughly two meters below us."
He took the scanner, glanced at the display, then handed it back. "In that case, change of plans." He pulled a short rod of woven titanium, twenty centimeters long, and five across, from a sheath on the back of his belt. He gave the rainbow patterned device a hard twist, and another section of rod dropped from the end. He twisted the new section, and a third dropped when it clicked into place. He repeated the process, until he had a staff over a meter and a half long. Then, one final twisted popped out a final section that unrolled into the blade of a shovel. He shoved it down, point first, and it cut into the ground with ease. "We dig."
Kathy looked up at him. "Sir," she asked with a sigh, "that device you carry everywhere, it's a shovel?"
"Yes," he answered defensively, "what's wrong with that? I also carry the standard knife, torch, side-arm, and laser pen."
"Sir, a shovel? On a space ship?"
He gestured to their surroundings. "We aren't always in space."
Several hours of debate over Captain Nova's Every-Day-Carry habits later.
The sun was starting to dip towards the horizon. This brought the relief of cooler temperatures for Halifax, and decreased solar radiation for K'tthia. Solar powered lights were switching on automatically around the house as their sensors fell into shadows.
Captain Nova and Kathy had a system going. He would loosen dirt, toss it into a pile, and she would push it away like a bulldozer. As they dug deeper, they added a dirt ramp to the hole, facing away from the headstones, so Kathy could continue clearing away the dirt.
"Slow down, sir," Kathy complained as she pushed a larger than usual pile of dirt up the ramp. "How are you digging so fast?"
"Experience," he answered without slowing down. "I dug holes, and broke rocks, every day of my life. From the day I could stand on my own, to the day Norland put a pickaxe through our master's skull. There's skill to it. A certain way to cut, and twist, to conserve energy. You never-"
"Clang!"
Nova stopped digging for the first time since the water break two hours ago. He glanced back at Kathy, who stopped halfway up the ramp with her dirt.
She turned around, letting the pile tumble down as she cleaned her face of dirt. "That sounded like metal."
Nova lifted his shovel, and winced at the bent tip. "Sturdy metal." He got down on his hands and knees, and started brushing dirt away. "There's a control panel."
Kathy, already at ground level, started sweeping with her front legs. "And another one over here," she said as she unearthed a rectangular protrusion. She cleaned it carefully, and realized she was mistaken. It wasn't a control panel at all. She inspected it carefully, and found it hinged on one side. A tiny pin held it latched on the other. The beetle poked at the pin with the very point of her foreleg's small manipulative claw, and the rectangular hatch sprung open. "Sir!"
Nova spun around, hand reaching for his shovel out of reflex. When he saw Kathy, and the faint blue glow in front of her, he relaxed a little, and crawled over. He looked into the port that had been opened, a glass window into the box beneath them. "My goodness..."
"She looks like Berry," Kathy pointed out, staring at the Pink earth pony inside. She was clean in the wintery light, and her mane was well brushed, littered with flowers. Her eyes were closed, and she had a peaceful look on her face, like she had fallen asleep. "Exactly like Berry, only older."
Noting the grey hairs among the pony's pink curls, Nova nodded in agreement. "She's been cryogenically suspended."
"Before, or after death?"
Nova shook his head. "No way to tell here. We'll need to get her back to the Ring."
Kathy looked up at the headstone. "Sir, this was the only energy signature."
"Yes," he confirmed sadly, glancing up at the headstone as well. "This is probably the only chamber." He stood up, and felt his boot hit something near the edge of the hole. It was too soft to be a rock, or a stick, but too hard to be a clump of dirt. He turned around, and reached into his pocket for his tac-light before kneeling down. Light in one hand, he brushed away dirt with the other.
"Find something else?" Kathy asked.
"Not sure," he replied. "I thought I kicked something." Among the clumps of dirt, he suddenly felt a different texture. He brushed the dirt away, finding fur. Dirty, stained fur. A little more digging revealed it to be a hoof, the rest of its owner laying beyond the wall of dirt. "It's Norland. Bring me the needle probe, we'll get the sample, and send it for analysis before we finish digging up the chamber."
"Yes, sir," Kathy said as she trekked up the ramp, and towards the shuttle.
Nova held the limp hoof as she left, carefully brushing away dirt from the sample area. "Not the way I wanted to say goodbye, old friend, but at least I get the chance."
Frowning, he started brushing away more dirt, revealing more of the hoof, and some of the leg. He was feeling the limb, squeezing at the ankle and fetlock, when K'tthia returned.
"Is something wrong?" she asked, voice undistorted, despite the device held in her mandibles. "I didn't bring the extension kit, since we have direct access."
"It may not work on this hoof," Nova muttered. "It's too intact, and I don't smell any decay. Might be an augmented limb. A damn good one at that. Musculature feels normal, and the fur is just as tight to it as it would be to flesh, even after who knows how long in the ground."
K'tthia set the probe kit down close to the limb, and withdrew a small needle cartridge. "A number two soft," she said as offered it to the captain, "this should pierce false skin, but not metal, or any of the polymers used in artificial muscle."
"Any of the polymers currently used by most of galaxy," Nova reminded her as he took the needle and placed it against Norland's leg. "With Norland, who knows how advanced this augment is?"
His eyes went wide when he triggered the needle cartridge, and it plunged into Norland's leg a preset distance. "Kathy, grab the scanner, and my canteen. We may have more digging ahead of us."
"Sir? What is it?"
"Kathy, I don't smell any decay." Nova pulled the needle out, and held his hand up for her to see. On his greyish-blue skin, were a few small drops of red. "And, he's bleeding."
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Ok did not see that coming
Well, that's certainly an unexpected twist! Apparently Norland somehow put himself into some kind of suspension after placing his wife into cryostasis. That is going to delight both Berry and Twilight, though I very strongly suspect that Grinparch Norland's continued survival is about to become a state secret of the Galactic Assembly. That old pirate still being alive, especially if he returned to his old piracy habits, would throw much of the galaxy into chaos.
I strongly suspect that Captain Nova will also introduce his old friend to a certain immortal, as well.
Diggy diggy hole!
This actually makes alot of sense especially if I'm remembering correctly he told Berry he was going to sleep. He probably was hoping on being found by those who could heal him and Pinkie. He most likely only stayed out as long as he did to make certain Berry could take care of herself, unless I'm misremembering things. All in all great chapter.
*INCOHERENT SINGING*
Also, wat a tweest!
THE PLOT CONGEALS!
Was not expecting that one. Well played good sir.
Pinkie? yesyesyesyes.
Maybe Norland too?! YESYESYESYES!
Interesting potential twists
Oh boy.
Huh what? Dude! Keep going! What the buck?! I'm hanging on the edge here. Definitely worth the wait.
Aaareeeiiii!!! Vampony Pirate!!! Now, I'm on tenterhooks.
Ooo interesting, my guess is that it has to do with what's poisoned the planet. They did say they didn't know what long term effects it could bring. Maybe put the body in a death-like state? Cause I'd doubt that Norland would bury his wife if he wasn't certain of it or that he would leave Berry to fend for herself
Huh. I didn't expect that. Schrodinger's Pinkie right now. She is both alive and dead. And that's interesting about Norland.
Excitement INTENSIFIES
Just reread this entire thing again. It's so good
Oh my Celestia! Pinkie isn't dead!?! Should have known if he normal diet couldn't kill her the contaminant couldn't either! The Elements may actually all be alive! And Dash and Pinkie could be revived.
Hax! I call hax on them both!
10184408
Keep on, they should be answered. But, let me know if they aren't.
10184764
Most of them were answered, though I would love some sort of flashback where we can see how Radio stole the presidents transport.
And oh my god is Pinkie still alive?!?!?!? I just caught up but now I want MORE!