Negative Mass (Horny in Hyper Space)

by D-APE

First published

Twilight Sparkle accidentally creates a wormhole that sucks her into a parellel universe. There, she finds herself aboard a starship where she meets what are probably the most dangerous beings to ever exist, but they seem friendly enough.

While experimenting with an unstable magic spell, Twilight Sparkle accidentally creates a wormhole that sucks her into a parallel universe. There, she finds herself aboard a starship where she meets what are probably the most dangerous beings to ever exist, but they seem friendly enough, maybe a little too friendly.

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The year is 3622. Mankind has been a spacefaring species for over a millennium. With traditional governments having long since collapsed, capitalism has taken their place. Mega corporations with private armies are the law in the galaxy as they compete with each other for control over distant star systems with Earth-like planets that could be colonized and used to further expand their empires.

The human race is not the only spacefaring species in the galaxy. Over two centuries ago, Humanity had their first encounter with a sapient alien race that later became known as the achi. Having unknowingly entered achi controlled space, a misunderstanding led to a human fleet destroying an achi patrol, inadvertently starting mankind’s first interspecies war.

Five years ago, after hundreds of billions of lives were lost, mankind finally emerged victorious from a gruesome two hundred year war with the achi, making humans the most powerful species in the known galaxy. However, as the achi know all too well, the greatest enemy humanity has ever known was never the achi, but humanity themselves. For, despite amazing advancements in genetic engineering and cybernetics, humans, at their core remain flawed creatures, beset on all sides by such afflictions of the human condition as greed, hatred, cruelty, and perversion.

With their civilization all but obliterated, what was left of the achi were forced to become obedient, although resentful, employees of the human races’ mega corporations. Those corporations, no longer having to spend exorbitant amounts of money on an interspecies war, could once again channel their funds into populating and exploiting distant star systems. One such star system, deemed H-14, was recently discovered to have a habitable planet. The New Horizons Corporation, which had discovered the planet, immediately claimed H-14, and organized a mission to its habitable planet.

CH1: Never Trust Cute Things...

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Alone on the bridge of the starship Eclipse, Captain Kal Razoah sat in his black leather command seat. His shoes, socks, and white jumpsuit laid scattered around him on the shiny black tiled floor. The ceiling and walls of the bridge were all one big screen, currently displaying a live video feed of the outside of the ship. It gave the impression that there was nothing between the room’s occupant and the hyperspace vortex.

Before the captain, a small black orb hovered in the air and projected a live, life-sized, holographic video feed of a very attractive young woman in nothing but her underwear. She was also sitting in a command seat, but on a different vessel of the flotilla. She had long, straight, well-kept, crimson hair, and big green eyes that glowed slightly from her optic nanites. Her skin was pale, as was the usual with spacers, but her complexion was clear and smooth. The lady captain’s body was very pleasing to Kal's eye. She wasn't exactly thin, probably right on the edge of being overweight, but it went to all the right places, like her curvy hips and large breasts. Breasts that were barely contained by her bra. All a result of her eating of actual food. Her vessel, the Mi Amora, was a massive agricultural ship, with greenhouses and livestock farms.

“Show me your titties, thems the rules.” Kal said, with a smug smile.

“Why do I always agree to these strip poker games with you?” She asked, then undid her bra and dropped it on the floor. Her bare, big, genetically modified breasts looked like they belonged in an art museum. Kal felt like he could stare at them for hours. “I lose every time.” The lady captain said, as she cupped one of her plump tits in her slender hand and ran a finger over her nipple. Kal could feel his erect manhood pushing against the fabric of his boxers.

“You have a terrible poker face, Zane.” He said.

“I have a great poker face. I win all the time with the other captains. Why are you so different?” She asked.

“I guess I’m just good like that.”

“If I find out you’ve been cheating, I'll tell Garo to come pay you a visit. I wonder, how much do you like your teeth?”

“Garo, huh? He and his brutes won’t get out of bed for anything less than a pirate attack, much less a guy cheating at a computer game. And batting your long pretty eyelashes won’t work against the achi.”

“Maybe Garo could be persuaded. I hear he really doesn't like you.”

“He doesn't like any human.”

“But he especially doesn't like you.”

“Well, if Garo doesn’t help you, Zane, you could always come over to the Eclipse and teach me a lesson in person. Maybe we could wrestle out our problems. You don’t even need to put on your clothes.” He said, giving her a wink.

“Tempting, but no thanks. We both signed the contract. As captains, neither of us can leave our ships until we reach Katrix 3. You know that.”

Suddenly, the words FOREIGN CONTAMINANT DETECTED IN ENGINEERING hovered before Kal, followed by an alarm.

“You should take care of that.” Zane said and closed the feed.

“Angel, what’s going on?” Kal asked, his boner no more.

“FOREIGN CONTAMINANT DETECTED IN ENGINEERING.” The ship's artificial intelligence said.

“No shit! What's the foreign contaminant? Has there been a hull breach?” He asked.

“FOREIGN CONTAMINANT IS ORGANIC. PRESSURE LEVELS NORMAL, NO HULL BREACH.”

“Organic? Are you sure?” It was impossible to see into engineering while the HS drive was active. The energy it emitted disrupted many electronic devices, including cameras.

“ONE HUNDRED PERCENT CERTAINTY.”

Kal wondered if one of the crew went into engineering without his permission, but he couldn't think of anyone stupid enough to do that who wasn’t in cryosleep. It would mean losing their career (and possibly their life) to be in the presence of a hyperspace drive while it was active.

“Angel, connect me to the Leviathan.”

“CONNECTION ESTABLISHED.”

The floating orb projector displayed a large, but not particularly fat, middle aged, bald headed man with a black beard and a burn scar over his right eye and down his cheek. His expression was dour, as was usual with Mace Karth, the flagship's captain. He wore a white NHC issued jumpsuit with regalia identifying him of his title, unlike Kal, who was wearing just a tank top and boxers.

“This better be important.” Captain Karth said in a gruff voice, not hiding his open dislike of the Eclipse's captain.

“I need the flotilla to stop. I have to turn off the Eclipse's HS drive.”

“Do you now?”

“Please don’t play games with me today, Karth. Stop the flotilla, there something that’s alive around my active hyperspace drive that could very well die if it’s around it any longer.”

“Then let it die.” Karth said, grimly.

“It could be one of my crew. If they die, their death is on you. You don’t want to add murderer to your infamous rap sheet, now do you, Karth?”

Karth let out an irritated sigh. “Fine, but be quick about it. I want to be back in hyperspace in three hours.”

“Thank you.” Kal said, closing the feed.

“Calling all ships. Disengage from hyperspace in ten. I want no one getting separated from the flotilla. All AIs must confirm.” Karth's gruff voice said over the flotilla’s main channel.

“Angel, confirm.” Kal ordered as he put his clothes back on.

“CONFIRMATION SENT.”

Fully clothed again, Kal exited the bridge, and headed towards the tram.

ECLIPSE EXITING HYPERSPACE IN T-MINUS FIVE MINUTES.” Angel announced over the Eclipse's main channel just as Kal reached the tram station, where he got on an awaiting tram. He selected engineering from a console, and the tram took off down the rails at high speed.

“The fuck's going on, captain?” Asked Chen Hao, the head of the Eclipse's security over Kal’s personal com channel.

“Meet me at the lift to engineering. Someone or something is in there.” Kal responded.

“Or something? How foreboding. I bet it’s just some lunatic with a case of space dementia. I'll bring my stun gun.”

About ten minutes later, the flotilla had successfully exited hyperspace, and Captain Razoah had made his way to the lift, where Chen Hao was waiting for him.

“20 credits, it's Crazy Joel in there.” Chen Hao said as the captain had his retina scanned, resulting in the elevator door opening.

“Nah, Crazy Joel might have a bunch of insane conspiracy theories, but I don’t think he'd do something stupid like this.” Kal said as the two stepped into the elevator, the door shutting behind them. In a few seconds, the door opened again, and they stepped out onto a catwalk.

The Eclipse's massive sphere-shaped energy core was the only source of light in the enormous room, and it shrouded everything in an eerie blue glow. All that stood between the two men and over a million degrees was an immensely powerful energy shield that was, ironically, powered by the core itself, which sat in a gigantic metal cradle that would melt instantly if the shield ever went down.

“You walk the catwalks around the core. I’ll check the drive below.” Kal said.

“On it.” Chen responded.

With that, the two men separated. Kal descended a ladder to the floor of the room. With a thought, he activated the optic nanites in his eyes, allowing him to see infrared light. The cables underneath the removable grated metal floors glowed with heat as he treaded over them, cautiously making his way to the drive.

And that's when he first saw the creature. It seemed to be inspecting the HS drive, which was a small rainbow hued ball of energy hovering in the air, surrounded by two spinning rings, and cradled by a machine protruding from the floor.

The creature, which hadn’t seen Kal yet, had its rear to him. From behind, it looked like a domesticated Earth animal, known as the horse, he remembered learning about as a child. This one, however, was much shorter than a typical horse. It couldn't have been taller than four feet.

Over Chen's personal channel he whispered, “Come to me, I found the contaminant.”

“On my way.” Chen responded, from which Kal heard through an earpiece.

Captain Razoah wondered if this was some kind of stupid prank by one of the engineers. Sneaking an animal onto the ship and getting it into engineering was a whole new level of idiocy, not to mention animal abuse. When the HS drive was active, it occasionally emitted bursts of short range energy that could not be contained by any known shield. With electronics, the energy would act like an EMP blast, but with living beings, it would destroy neurons and other brain cells. Fortunately, it seemed like the HS drive had been shut down before the horse creature experienced one of those harmful bursts.

Thinking it was a simple pet of some kind. Captain Razoah approached the creature and placed a hand on its flank. “That's a good tiny horse thing.” He said.

The tiny horse thing's response was to yelp and utter something that sounded a lot like speech in the voice of a young woman. Kal did not expect this reaction and stumbled over himself, falling to the floor in an attempt to quickly back away from the creature.

The tiny horse spun around towards him, then backed itself into a corner, saying a few more words in an alien language. She sounded terrified. Kal, in return, just stared at her with dumbfounded awe. Her face did not look like a horse's. She had an eerily human-like expression, ridiculously large eyes, a horn protruding from the top of her head, and was all adorable. He suddenly had the urge to scratch her behind her cute pointy ears.

After a few moments, his brain, both synthetic and organic, finally processed the reality of the situation. It was a first contact scenario with an alien race. With no sudden movements, Kal got to his feet. “I’m not going to hurt you.” He said, even though he knew the alien probably couldn’t understand him, but still, he tried to make his voice sound calm and gentle. He bent forward a bit, to make himself seem smaller, outstretched his right hand towards the creature, and his left off to the side in a peaceful gesture. Then he cautiously began to approach the creature.

“It’s okay. No one's going to hurt you.”

The fear on her face soon seemed to melt away into curiosity, and the creature began inching its way towards him. She said a few more alien words in a voice that sounded calmer than before.

And that's when Chen Hao appeared and zapped the talking horse creature with eight million volts of electricity. She fell to the ground, convulsed for a bit, then passed out.

“Holy shit, man! That thing was about to take your hand off!” Chen exclaimed.

“H-how could you possibly think that adorable horse creature was a threat?!”

“Never trust cute things. It's a sure way to get yourself killed. On Furopa, there’s this animal called a Zinx. It’s adorable, too. So much so that the humans that discovered it took it back on their ship to domesticate. Then it slaughtered half the crew in their sleep.”

The two men stared at each other for a moment of silence before Kal asked, “Are you high?”

“Depends, will you report me if I am?”

“I might.”

“Then no.” Chen said, then snickered.

“You know, people like you are the reason we had a two hundred year war with the achi. Now, help me get her to the med bay.”

--

The atmosphere of the recovery room that Chen and Kal took the tiny horse alien to was thick with tranquility. The screen covering the ceiling and walls displayed the vista of a peaceful countryside with rolling hills of tall, lush, green grass, which rippled as a slight breeze blew by. The sky was a beautiful, endless light blue, with two suns high above, one of them covered by a puffy white cloud. Also hanging in the sky was a distinct, large, full moon of orange and red.

Chirping birds flew overhead, and herds of wild morses, herbivores that looked like a cross between a monkey and an antlered deer, roamed the countryside, grazing on the grass. It was only recorded imagery, but the incredibly realistic, 3D, flawless definition made Kal occasionally forget he was on a starship flying through space as he sat in a chair while he pretended to read a holographic book.

On either side of Kal, there was a hospital bed. On the hospital bed to Kal’s right, Chen, who had quickly grown bored of waiting, was taking a nap. His plasma pistol and stun gun laid within arms reach on the end table beside him. To Kal's left, the cute purple horse creature laid unconscious, her chest calmly rising and falling as she breathed the sterilized, recycled air of the starship.

Kal Razoah considered himself a decent man, and had attempted to cover the alien's exposed nether regions with a sheet, but she had repositioned herself in her sleep, and the sheet slipped off, leaving Kal with a front row seat to the show. He found himself staring at the oddly enticing sight. For the first time in eleven agonizing months, he was seeing a pussy in the flesh, and it was driving him crazy. He wondered what it would feel like inside her. His perverted thought process derailed as the alien stirred from her sleep, letting out a whine, as she opened her big purple eyes.

Kal closed his book, and got up. The alien looked at him as he started to greet her, “Hey th-” Before he could finish the sentence, the air was sucked from his lungs as a purple-hued force picked the man up and flung him against the wall as if he were a child's plaything, knocking over a tray of medical supplies and damaging the display screen, turning a portion of the wall black in the process.

In an instant, Chen jumped out of bed, grabbed his plasma pistol, and aimed it at her head, shouting, “Move and I'll melt your fucking face off!”

She was standing on the bed at this point, shaking and wide eyed. “I-I c-can understand you?” She asked, sounding and looking a mixture of shocked, confused, and terrified.

“Stand down, Hao!” Captain Razoah said, finding his voice again.

“She’s going to kill us all if we don’t get her first! She's a vicious Zinx!”

“Y-you attacked me first, monster!” She exclaimed.

“Put down your gun, Hao! I will not have you starting an interspecies war on my ship!” Kal shouted as he got to his feet.

After a very tense emotional moment, which Hao likely spent contemplating whether or not to fire super hot plasma at her face, he chose to lower his pistol, but not holster it. He sat back down on the bed with the gun across his lap, never once taking his eyes off the quadruped.

“Good, now that we got our action for the day out of the way, let’s start over with introductions. I'm Kal Razoah of the human race.” He said, trying to keep things simple with no titles, just name and race.

“Chen Hao, also human.”

After a moment of staring at Hao's weapon, the quadruped found some of her composure, and sat down on her haunches before uttering, “Twilight Sparkle, pony.”

Hao snickered.

“What?” She asked.

“Is that really your name or are you just fucking with us?”

“I assure you, that is the name my parents gave me. May I ask a few questions? I have a lot of them.”

“Ask away.” Kal said, walking over to to the chair, and taking a seat.

“How come I suddenly understand your language, and you, mine?”

“That would be the nanites I injected into your brain. They’re communicating with the our neural implants, allowing us to understand your language.

“You did what to my brain!?” She exclaimed, going wide eyed again.

“Relax, the nanites are harmless.”

“What are nanites, some kind of parasite?”

A holographic image of a nanite suddenly appeared. It looked like a see-through octopus. “They're microscopic robots.” He said.

“What are robots?”

“An electro-mechanical machine that is guided by a computer program.”

“What’s a computer program?”

Now this is interesting, an alien that managed to get onto a starship, but doesn’t know what a computer is. “Computer programs are a sequence of instructions, written to perform a specified task with the computer.

She opened her mouth to ask something else, but Kal interrupted her, already knowing what she was going to ask. “A computer is a device that can be programmed to carry out a finite set of arithmetic or logical operations.”

“How does-”

Kal interrupted her again. “Let's save your questions about our technology for later. I have a question for you.”

“Okay.”

“How did you get onto our ship?”

“Oh, is this some kind of boat?”

“Something like that.” Chen said.

“Well, I’m not exactly sure how I got here, but I was experimenting with this long distance teleportation spell I discovered from a scroll written by Starswirl the Bearded. I must have done something wrong, because this tear opened up and sucked me into it. Then I ended up in that big strange blue room. Hey, is Equestria nearby?”

Now it was Kal’s turn to be confused. Not even humans had discovered how to teleport yet. How could this primitive pony, who didn't know what a computer was, do it?

“Oh my god, she's a mage!” Exclaimed Chen.

“Huh?” Kal uttered.

“She can use magic like in video games.”

“Magic is not real, it's what primitive cultures call things they do not understand. There is only that which can be scientifically explained, and that which has yet to be explained.” Kal said.

Twilight looked at Kal like he had two heads. Then her horn as well as the stun gun on the stand next to Chen glowed with purple energy as the stun gun proceeded to float through the air over to the pony. “Understand that.” She said, inspecting the non-lethal weapon.

Kal was left speechless, suddenly re-remembering the burst of energy that knocked him against the wall earlier. Neither his synthetic or organic brain could even begin to comprehend what she just did. Sure, gravity manipulation to cause things to hover wasn't new to him, but the stun gun was a simple device, with no anti-gravity capabilities. What she just did seemed to defy physics.

“Magic...” Kal uttered. The word felt strange rolling over his tongue. Is it possible?

“Do you guys think you could drop me off at port in Equestria?” She asked, still thinking she was on a boat in some ocean.

“There's something you should know.” Kal said

“What's that?”

“This is not a boat. You’re on a starship in space.”

She giggled. "Do you think me a fool?" She asked, clearly not believing him.

“Angel, display the live feed of the outside of the Eclipse in recovery room three.”

“ESTABLISHED.”

The screen on the walls and ceiling showed the black of space, dotted with countless stars, and all around them was the flotilla, twenty other starships, varying in sizes and designs.

“How, this, you, me, space?!” With that her eyes rolled up into her head, and she fainted, likely from having a mind-blowing revelation.

CH2: Close Encounter

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Twilight Sparkle sat on her haunches in the hospital bed while the human, known as Captain Razoah, sat in the chair beside her. The apparently not magical walls and ceiling of recovery room three showed the many starships of the flotilla traveling through a spinning vortex of rainbow-hued energy.

“What exactly is hyperspace?” Twilight asked Kal, another one of the countless questions she had asked him almost nonstop in the past few hours. Even though the unicorn had devoted most of her life to learning about how her universe worked, it was as if she knew nothing before coming onto the Eclipse.

“Hyperspace is an alternative region of space coexisting with our own universe. You see, in normal space, nothing can exceed the speed of light, but in hyperspace, where a starship can move faster with less energy, there is no limit to how fast something can go. Right now we're traveling roughly a thousand times the speed of light, reducing a thousand-year journey to a one-year journey.”

Twilight’s brain absorbed all the information he had given her like a sponge, but there was so much more to learn. She wished she had some parchment and ink to take notes with. It was fascinating to her all the things the humans’ technology could do while still operating within the laws of physics, and most interesting of all, without magic. “Where is the flotilla going?” She asked.

“Our mission is to establish a colony on a recently discovered habitable planet called Katrix 3. We’re almost there; it’ll be another month or so.”

“What if this Katrix 3 is already occupied by an intelligent species?”

“Sapient life developing on other planets is actually a very rare occurrence in this galaxy. Out of the hundreds of habitable planets we’ve discovered, the achi were the only intelligent alien race we’ve ever encountered.” An image of a green and blue planet with two moons appeared before them. “Our probes have found no signs of civilization on Katrix 3. There are no lights or buildings, just lots of land and water.”

“Has anyone actually been there to make sure?”

“No, we’ll be the first.”

Twilight’s stomach growled loudly and she blushed. “All this knowledge has made me hungry. Do you think I could get something to eat?” She asked.

“I’ll be right back.” Kal said, then got up and walked out of the room. After a moment he came back, but he didn’t bring any visible food, just a glass of water and a closed fist. He came over to the side of the bed and opened his hand. In his hairless palm was a small, white capsule.

“What’s that?” She asked.

“Nutrition.”

“Don’t you have anything like vegetables or fruit?” She asked, her stomach growling again.

“Not on this ship. Food is a luxury for spacers. This pill has all the nutrition a human body needs in a typical day.”

“I’m not a human.”

“Well, we don’t have a pony pill, so we’ll just have to make due.”

Hesitantly, she picked up the pill with a telekinetic tendril and placed it in her mouth. Then she grabbed the glass of water in Kal’s other hand, and took a sip to wash it down. After a moment of sipping on the water, her stomach actually felt full. Even though it wasn’t very satisfying, it got rid of her hunger.

“I’ve grown tired of this scenery. Angel, display Earth beach recording 2120 in recovery room three.”

“DISPLAYING.”

Suddenly, the walls and ceiling changed from the hyperspace vortex to a peaceful beach, not unlike the ones in Equestria. Waves of saltwater came up and crawled across the shore before reaching a certain point and retreating back into the ocean. With each new wave, tiny clam-like creatures washed ashore and would desperately try to burrow into the sand before quick birds could snatch them up into their beaks. Above, the sky was a pink color, with a single sun going down below the horizon.

Kal took a seat next to Twilight on the bed, giving her an awkward look.

“Is there something on your mind?” She asked, feeling a little uncomfortable under the human’s stare.

“May I pet you? If it’s alright with you, that is.”

“Pet me? I’m not a pet.”

“Oh, of course not, you’re an intelligent being. I only meant, could I, very respectfully, rub your coat, maybe gently scratch behind your ears.”

It was a strange request, but she didn’t see the harm in it. “Uh, I guess that would be alright.”

The human gave her a comforting smile as he reached over and began scratching behind her ears. It was an odd but pleasant sensation; his dexterous fingers danced in circular motions in her mane. She liked it, maybe a little too much as she let out an involuntary soft cry of pleasure.

“By Celestia, hands are awesome!” She exclaimed, wondering what other amazing things he could do with his hands. Then she blushed when a dirty thought popped into her head.

“What’s wrong? You’re blushing.” He asked as his fingers brushed against her hot cheek and moved lower, proceeding to scratch under her chin. Her purple eyes locked onto his calm hazel ones, and she suddenly felt butterflies in her stomach as her cheeks turned an even deeper shade of red.

“I-I… uh…” She muttered, temporarily forgetting how to talk. He was so different from a stallion, but in his own way, she thought he was actually kind of cute. Plus, he was vastly more intelligent than any guy she had ever met, and intelligence was a major turn on for her. She was also enraptured by all his advanced technology. She looked over his features again. Kal was clean shaven with light colored skin and slightly wild but stylish short brown hair. He was tall, over six feet, had broad shoulders, and very little extra body fat, which wasn’t surprising if all he ingested were nutrition tablets and water. His flat face wasn’t all that different from a pony’s, able to portray many different emotional expressions, although it had a few differences, the most obvious being his odd triangular nose, small eyes, and the rounded, swept back ears on the sides of his head instead of the top.

And then, all of a sudden, and much to Twilight’s surprise, he leaned in and kissed her on the lips. His breath smelled minty as he playfully nibbled on her lower lip before pulling away. She felt a tingling sensation pulse down her inner thighs while her heart started pumping faster in her chest.

“Y-you k-kissed me.” She said, remembering how to talk again.

“Did you like it?” He asked.

“I-I think I kind of did, but isn’t this wrong?”

“If it feels right, how can it be wrong?” He leaned in attempting to kiss her again, but she placed a hoof on his lips.

“Stop, this is too weird for me right now. I need time to think about it.”

He leaned back, and she removed her hoof. “Okay, that’s fine. I won’t pressure you.” Kal said, standing up. He stretched his back, then scratched the back of his head. “I think it’s time you met Xander Vu, my lead engineer and science expert. He would have a better idea about how you got here, and hopefully, how we could get you home.”

“As long as he doesn’t zap me with a stun gun, I’d like to meet him.”

“CAPTAIN RAZOAH, YOUR PRESENCE IS REQUIRED ON THE BRIDGE. INCOMING HIGH PRIORITY TRANSMISSION FROM THE LEVIATHAN.”

“Ugh, I have to take care of that. You’re going to have to stay in the medical bay. I’ll come get you in a little bit. If you have any more questions, ask Angel.”

And then a man with a brown pony tail walked into the room. When he saw Twilight, an expression of absolute terror washed over his scraggly beard covered face as he jabbed a finger in her direction.

“Abomination. AAAHBAAHMINATION! I knew this day would come! I KNEW IT! I’ve been preparing for you!” He pulled a piece of tin foil out from one of his many pockets and put it on his head. “TRY LIQUEFYING MY BRAIN WITH YOUR MIND RAYS NOW, ALIEN SCUM!”

“Crazy Joel!” Kal yelled, grabbing the man and slapping him across the face. “Look at me! This is Twilight, she’s a unicorn from another universe and she is NOT going to turn your brain to mush, I promise you!” Kal looked at Twilight and asked, “You won’t, right?”

“Right! No brain melting!” She exclaimed.

“She’s a unicorn from another universe?” The man asked, significantly calmer than he was a moment ago.

“Yes.” Kal said, releasing his grip on Crazy Joel.

“Oh, okay then. I guess we’re cool.” He said, taking off his tin foil hat and putting it back in his pocket to save for future mind invasion prevention.

“CAPTAIN RAZOAH, YOUR PRESENCE IS REQUIRED ON THE BRIDGE. INCOMING HIGH PRIORITY TRANSMISSION FROM THE LEVIATHAN.”

“I heard you the first time, I’ll be there in a moment!” Kal yelled, then turned to Crazy Joel and asked, “What are you doing in here?”

“The system reported a malfunction in this room’s display screen. I came to fix it. That’s what I do, I fix shit.”

“Okay, you do that, but don’t tell anyone about Twilight yet. I don’t want word getting off this ship that I’m harboring an alien. Do you understand? If Karth or Garo find out she’s here, bad things will happen.”

Crazy Joel nodded.

Kal left the room as Crazy Joel got to work on the wall.

“Hey, who are Karth and Garo? And why would bad things happen if they learned of me?” Twilight asked.

“Mace Karth, the captain of a massive warship, the Leviathan. He’s in charge of this entire mission. Karth has a gigantic stick up his ass, and hates Captain Razoah with a passion. He's also a suspected war criminal, but that's besides the point. Karth would want to have you cruelly experimented on like a lab rat, and Garo, the commander of the ach mercenaries, would probably try to eat you.

Twilight gulped.

--

Captain Razoah entered the bridge. “Angel, accept transmission.” He said, standing in front of the command seat with his hands behind his back in a respectful gesture, even if he didn’t actually respect the flagship captain.

“FEED ESTABLISHED.”

Captain Karth Appeared, also standing, but with his arms folded across his chest and his back to Kal as he looked out the virtual window to the outside of his ship

“Took your sweet time, did you?” Karth asked.

“Sorry, I was in the medical bay.”

“And what were you doing in the medical bay?”

“Helping a crew-mate with a medical issue. Was there something you needed?”

“I have yet to receive your report on who or what was in your engineering bay.”

“A cat.”

“A cat?” Karth asked, turning around to face Kal, a scowl and a raised eyebrow on his face.

“Yes.”

“And how did this cat get past a sealed door that requires a retina scan to open?

“It was a pretty smart cat. Is there anything else? I need to meet with my lead engineer.”

“Yes, there is something else. Tomorrow, when we exit hyperspace to let our cores recharge before our final jump to Katrix 3, I’ve scheduled a security sweep of your ship. If you’re hiding something, the achi will find it. I promise you that.

“Hiding something? Now, why would I ever hide something from you?”

“Why, indeed.” Karth said, and with that he closed the video feed.

“FUCK.” Kal cursed.

--

On the bridge of his starship, Captain Razoah sat in his swiveling command seat, facing the door as he waited for Xander Vu to arrive. To his right, Twilight Sparkle sat patiently on her haunches. Kal’s hand twitched as he thought about reaching over and running his fingers through her hair.

“Have I come to a dangerous place?” She asked suddenly.

Kal took a moment to think of the right response before answering. “Potentially, yes, but I will do everything in my power to keep you from harm.”

After a moment she said, “I guess there are bad guys in every universe.”

“Seems like it.”

The door slid open and an unimposing man in an orange jumpsuit walked into the room. His deadpan expression remained unchanged as his blue eyes met Twilight.

“So this is who you found in engineering.”

“Hello, I’m-”

The man interrupted the pony before she could finish, “Your name is Twilight Sparkle. You’re twenty one Earth years old. You weigh eighty-five pounds. Your blood pressure is one twenty over eighty. Your blood cell count is optimal by human standards. Your heart rate is one hundred and ten, and your favorite color is… not purple. That last one was a guess.”

Twilight’s face portrayed her surprise. “H-how did you know all that?” She asked.

“The couple billion nanites in your body told me. You should be thankful for them. They eliminated the harmful parasites and pathogens that were in your system, and made you invulnerable to cancer or illness.” The man waved a hand, and a hologram of the unicorn as well as several floating windows displaying data appeared. With a flick of his wrist, the holographic mare’s hide disappeared, revealing the muscle beneath. Another flick of his wrist revealed her organs and bones. “Astounding, heart, lungs, stomach, liver, kidneys, intestines, all the major organs are there. It amazes me how life on other planets, and apparently even in different universes, always seems to develop in much the same way as it did on Earth. Curious, though, how your kind evolved into sapience without opposable thumbs.”

Twilight was left speechless, her eyes pinned to the three-dimensional image of her insides.

Kal took the initiative and asked, “Do you have an idea about how she got here?”

“There’s only one explanation in my mind. She opened a wormhole between universes with the help of the Eclipse’s HS drive.”

“You lost me. I thought wormholes were impossible.”

“Just because we haven’t figured out how to create one yet doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Physicists have long theorized that hyperspace drives, or negative mass generators, by their proper name, are the key to creating wormholes, but there always seemed to be a missing unknown element required for a wormhole to occur.” Xander Vu waved his hand, causing the holographic image of Twilight’s insides and the data windows to dissipate. “Miss Sparkle, Captain Razoah briefly mentioned to me earlier that you have the ability to manipulate a force that was previously thought nonexistent. I believe he called it magic. Would you be so kind as to give me a demonstration?

Twilight nodded, then her body began to glow with sparkling purple-hued energy. Suddenly, in a flash of light she disappeared and reappeared on the other side of the room. With another flash of light, she teleported back to Kal’s side. The unicorn found her ability to talk again and asked, “Do you know how I can get back to my planet?”

“With your magic and a negative mass generator, it’s possible, but there are a few problems that must be addressed. Firstly, your existence in this universe proves the theory of alternate realities, meaning, it’s very likely that there’s close to an infinite number of other universes. Finding your exact universe would be like finding a particular tiny fish in an astronomical sized ocean. Secondly, it’s very likely that the other side of the wormhole will open up in the middle of space, meaning we would have to bring you through in a space-worthy vessel. And lastly, we would have to locate your tiny planet in what is likely an extraordinarily big universe once we’re there.”

“Can you do it, though?” Kal asked.

“It will require some very serious calculations, a little bit of educated guesswork, and a better understanding of Twilight’s ability to manipulate the force known as magic.”

“So in other words, it’s going to take some time.”

“Yes.”

“That’s the one thing we don’t have. Tomorrow, when the flotilla exits hyperspace, the achi are going to run a security sweep of this ship. If she’s onboard, they will find her.”

“Then we’re going to have to get her onto another starship without them knowing.” Xander turned to Twilight and asked, “Do you think you could teleport between ships?”

“I need to be able to see where I’m teleporting to.”

“What if you were seeing an image of the place you wanted to teleport to?” Xander asked.

“I’ve never tried that before, but in theory it should work, as long as the place is not too far away.” Twilight said.

“That’s one problem solved, now we just need to find a captain we can trust.” Xander said.

“I know just the one…” Said Kal.

--

“I wondered when you would call me again. I was beginning to think you didn’t like me anymore.” Zane said in her usual semi-sultry tone, sitting in her command seat with her legs crossed. Unlike last time, she was actually fully clothed in a tight, body conforming, white jumpsuit that showed off her every curve. If that wasn’t enough to stir Kal’s loins, she also had the front zipper part way unzipped to display her deep cleavage. Kal wondered if she actually enjoyed torturing sexually frustrated men.

“Hello, Zane. You look nice as usual.”

“Nice? I’m fucking spectacular.”

“Oh, of course you are.”

“So what’s up?”

“I have someone I’d like you to meet.”

“I thought I had met everyone worth meeting in the flotilla.”

“Twilight, you can come in now.”

The door to the bridge slid open, and in walked the purple unicorn. Zane tilted her head to the side as her big green eyes followed the pony who made her way to Kal’s side. The corners of the young woman’s lips twitched, and her face looked like it couldn’t decide on what expression to show.

“This is Twilight Sparkle, a magical unicorn from another universe.” Captain Razoah said.

Zane’s conflicting face finally decided on a beaming toothy smile.

After a moment of Zane continuing to just smile and stare at the pony, Kal said, “Garth is on to me. I need you to hide Twilight on your ship.”

Zane didn’t respond.

“Uh, Zane?”

For another long moment, there was no response.

“Did she break?” Twilight asked.

Then suddenly, Zane shook her head then brought a hand up to hold her forehead. “Ugh, I think my synthetic brain crashed from adorableness overload.”

“What’s a synthetic brain?” Twilight asked.

“It means the same thing as neural implant. I told you about this before, we have a computer intertwined with our organic brains. They perform thousands of functions, such as allowing hands-free interfacing with our tech and translating and categorizing alien languages.” Kal explained, then looked to Zane and asked, “Can you help us out?”

“Yeah, sure, she can stay with me. I think it would be good to get the poor thing away from the overwhelming testosterone on your ship. But how are we going to get her over here? I can’t exactly send a shuttle over without Karth or the achi taking notice.”

“She can teleport.” Kal said then turned to Twilight and asked, “You ready?”

“I’m a little nervous. I’ve never teleported like this before.”

“Unless you want to be in lab, being probed, poked and prodded by curious humans in white coats for the rest of your life, you don’t have a choice.”

“Alright, here I go.” She said, then took in a deep breath. Sparkling purple-hued energy surrounded her, then in a flash of light she disappeared and reappeared instantly next to Zane on the bridge of the Mi Amora. Zane clapped her hands in applause at the display, but she stopped and jumped out of her seat when Twilight suddenly collapsed to the floor, panting.

“Hey, are you alright?” Zane asked, kneeling down next to Twilight and proceeding to stroke the pony’s back with her hand.

“Y-yeah, I’ll be fine. That spell… took a lot more energy… than I thought it would.” Said Twilight, breathing heavily. After a few moments of Zane rubbing the pony’s back, Twilight finally began breathing normally again.

The captain ran her fingers through Twilight’s mane. “Oh no, just look at this mane, all these split ends…” Zane said, then leaned in and sniffed. “You stink! When was the last time you bathed?”

Twilight blushed and said, “I guess it’s been a few days.”

“This is deplorable, Kal. Why didn't you let her take a shower on your ship?”

“I uh, I mean, I was going to, but I’ve been trying to keep her hidden from the crew, so I didn’t want to risk her using the crew showers.”

“Don’t you have a bathtub in your cabin?”

“Yeah, but that’s in my personal bathroom.

“So?”

“So it’s my personal bathroom.”

“That’s a very bad Kal, completely unacceptable. Guevara, start a hot bath in my cabin, immediately”

“INITIATED.” Said Guevara, the Mi Amora’s AI.

Come on, sweetheart, let's go get you cleaned up.” Zane said as she helped Twilight to her hooves, then closed the video feed.

Twilight followed behind Captain Zane Madigan. She found herself observing the lady captain’s rear end as they walked. The mare found it oddly hypnotizing. With each step, her curvy hips swayed from side to side in an almost exaggerated manner, and the two plump globes of her behind would bounce alternatingly.’

“Do you like my ass?” Zane asked, looking over her shoulder at Twilight as they walked.

Twilight blushed, feeling a little embarrassed that she was caught staring.“Y-yes, it’s a very nice ass.”

“It better be, my parents spent a lot of money for it.”

“What do you mean?”

“My body is the result of fifteen hundred years of genetic engineering. My bone structure, face, breasts, hips, and ass are all the outcome of genes taken from some of the most attractive pornstars and models of the human race.”

“Are you saying your parents could choose how you looked?”

“Yes, I was genetically modified for sex appeal. Men seem to appreciate it; I know Captain Razoah does.” They arrived at a door. “Here we are.” Zane said as a device connected to the wall ran a beam of red light over her eye, resulting in the door sliding open. They walked inside and the door closed automatically behind them. “Welcome to my humble abode.”

The room they were in was decently sized. The floor had shiny white hexagon tiles. The screens on the walls and ceiling displayed a lush green jungle with tall thick trees. On one side of the room, there was an actual kitchen and a wooden table with chairs. On the other side, there was a couch with a coffee table and a floating black orb in front of it.

“It looks cozy.” Twilight said.

“Let’s get you into the bath, it should be ready for us by now.”

“Us?”

“I could use a bath too. The tub is plenty big enough for the both of us.”

Bathing with someone else wasn’t in the least bit strange to Twilight, especially with another female. At the spa in Ponyville, she had bathed with her friends countless times.

“Sounds good to me.” Twilight said, letting Zane lead her to the bathroom.

It was a big bathroom, with the same white hexagon tiles as the rest of the cabin. The screen in the room displayed the inside of a large cavern with steamy hot springs and glowing blue crystals jutting out of the ceiling. Little orbs of light hovered in the air, illuminating the room with soft lighting. As for the tub, she wasn’t kidding about it being big enough for both of them. It was an enormous below-floor jacuzzi that could easily fit four large humans comfortably, and it was filled with steaming hot water.

“Go on, step in. It should feel nice.”

Twilight hesitantly stepped into the jacuzzi as Zane poured something into the water. Nice wasn’t the word Twilight would've used to describe the water. It wasn’t strong enough… mesmerizing or incredible, maybe. She let out a soft cry of bliss as she submerged everything in the water but her head.

“That good, huh?” Zane asked as she undressed, taking off her shoes, socks, and a metal wristband before unzipping her tight jumpsuit.

“It’s wonderful.” Twilight said as Captain Madigan worked herself out of her jumpsuit, at one point having to wiggle her hips a bit, causing her bountiful breasts to jiggle. With the jumpsuit finally off, she discarded it on the floor. Next, she undid her bra and threw it on top of her jumpsuit, baring her plump boobs to Twilight.

“Woah, do all the females of your race have breasts as big as yours?”

“No, most women get C or D cups, but my parents were feeling generous when they gave me these big 32M cups. I guess they wanted me to succeed in the galaxy.

“How does having big breasts help you succeed?”

“Well, the NHC is run mostly by perverted old guys that tend to like big titties. Becoming a captain of a starship takes a lot of climbing the ranks, and I took every advantage I could get.”

“Don’t they get in the way?”

“Sometimes I drop food in my cleavage, and I don’t do jogging well, but you get used to them. The problem is that most women tend to get jealous, and resent me because of my breast size. They say I’m a slut, but I don’t really care what they think, because I get along just fine with straight men and lesbians.” Zane worked off her panties and tossed them onto the clothes pile before asking, “You wouldn’t happen to be a lesbian, would you?”

Twilight’s face turned beet red as she stuttered out a response, “I-I uh, w-well, I mean, I like stallions and I liked it when Captain Razoah k-kissed me, but I can’t exactly say I haven’t thought about girls like that.” Twilight glanced at Zane’s exposed nether regions. She had a neat and trimmed patch of hair above her womanhood. It was the same crimson color as the hair on her head.

“Wait, did you say Kal kissed you?” Zane asked, her eyes wide and attentive as she stepped into the jacuzzi and sat down across from Twilight.

“Yeah, it was brief, though, and I got a little weirded out by it.”

“That sly dog… tell me, did he use that tacky Earth sunset scene? He had that playing in the background when he first made a move on me.”

“Yeah, he did.” Twilight said and giggled. “Hey, how come you two aren’t, you know, together? From the way he was looking at you, Kal really seems to like you.”

“We are technically together, but as captains we can’t leave our starships to be together in an intimate manner until we reach our destination for penalty of losing our careers.”

“Aren’t you mad? He kissed another girl.”

“No, not really, these past eleven months have been difficult on both of us, I know he probably couldn’t help himself. You are irresistibly cute.” Twilight blushed as Zane gave her a sultry gaze with a sly smile. “Enough about that, I think it’s time we do something about that mane of yours.” Zane said before grabbing two bottles and making her way over to Twilight. She got on her knees in front of the pony and set the bottles down on a ledge, then grabbed a shower head with an extendable hose connected to it. Holding it over Twilight’s head, she pressed a trigger, and hot water began to fall on top of the unicorn. The high pressure of the water pounding her scalp was mesmerizingly pleasant as Zane used her free hand to run her fingers through Twilight’s purple mane. The pony closed her eyes and smiled, letting Zane do as she pleased.

“You have beautifully colored hair. Is it natural?

“Yeah.”

“Humans have to modify genes to get a color like this. That or dye it. Are other ponies purple like you?”

“Ponies come in all kinds of different colors. My friend Rainbow Dash has every color of the rainbow in her mane and tail.”

“Is Rainbow Dash gay?”

“How did you know?”

“Just a guess.”

Zane set the shower head down, then grabbed one of the bottles. She squeezed a little bit of the contents onto her palm before setting the bottle down and rubbing her hands together. She then proceeded to run her fingers through the mare’s mane.

“Mmm…” Twilight uttered when Zane began massaging her scalp, working in what the pony assumed was shampoo. After a moment of that, at one point briefly playing with the unicorn’s pointy ears, Zane picked up the shower head again and began washing out the shampoo. With the shampoo rinsed out, Zane set the shower head down and grabbed the other bottle. She squeezed its contents into her palm, then repeated the same process over again with conditioner.

With Twilight’s hair soft, silk-like, and clean again, Zane said, “Now let’s clean that adorable face of yours. We don’t want any nasty blemishes developing.”

Twilight blushed at the previous comment about her adorableness as Zane squeezed the white, beady contents of a tube onto her palm. She then rubbed her hands together and proceeded to use her graceful fingers to spread the cleansing solution on Twilight’s forehead, the bridge of her nose, chin, and her blushing cheeks. When the starship captain used a wet washcloth to remove the cleansing solution, Twilight’s big purple eyes met Zane’s own glowing green ones, and suddenly she felt that familiar fluttery feeling in her stomach again. Humans, apparently, had a strange effect on her.

With Twilight’s face rinsed clean, Zane took advantage of the moment, placing her hands over the mare’s increasingly red cheeks, and leaning in to meet her lips with Twilight’s. The surprised pony’s eyes went wide as a tingling sensation pulsed in her marehood. Pleased by the feeling in her loins, Twilight got over her initial shock fairly quickly. She closed her eyes and returned the favor. All thoughts of weirdness were pushed further and further to the back of Twilight’s mind as passion built and the gears in her loins turned. She wrapped her forelegs around Zane’s midsection and felt the young captain’s smooth hairless skin as she moved in closer. Zane’s soft tits pressed against Twilight’s chest as the captain stroked the mare’s back with one hand and fingered her own womanhood with the other.

For the first time in history, and likely not for the last time, human and pony tongues met in saliva-exchanging battle. Zane’s hand began moving farther down the curve of the pony’s backside as Twilight took the initiative and slowly pushed the captain’s agile muscular organ back into the human’s mouth, exploring the strange new frontier. After a few sensual minutes behind Zane’s perfectly straight pearly whites, the lady captain started pushing Twilight’s tongue out and into the mare’s mouth, taking the intense fight to her.

After several moments inside the mare’s mouth, Zane occasionally tilting her head from one side to the other, she took her fingers off of her own clit and placed them over Twilight’s inner thigh, beginning to caress it in circular motions, coming close, but not quite over the pony’s marehood. The human’s touch on the pony’s flesh left behind electric tingles.

Twilight’s ability to touch Zane’s body wasn’t limited to her hooves. Her horn began to glow, then from it a sparkling purple tendril sprouted and began crawling down the human’s neck and continued to move lower in between the captain’s breasts.

As Zane’s right hand rubbed Twilight’s inner thigh, it briefly brushed over the mare’s aroused sensitive slit. That was the last straw, Twilight couldn’t stand it anymore, she desperately needed Zane’s fingers to give her marehood some attention. To show she was ready for action, her magical tendril crawled further down Zane’s torso, over her belly, across the trimmed patch of crimson hair, and finally settled on the human’s womanhood where it began to vibrate against Zane’s clit. The captain’s bliss-filled voice was muffled as her mouth was preoccupied in a passionate kiss.

Taking the hint, Zane moved her dexterous fingers over Twilight’s pink slit, and commenced rubbing her marehood in a up and down motion. She gently and slowly brushed over the pony’s sensitive entrance and clit, eliciting a pleased vocal response from Twilight.

Zane moved the tips of her index and middle fingers over the mare’s clitoris and proceeded to gently and exaggeratingly rub it in circular motions. Twilight squirmed from the electric sensations pulsing between her hind legs. To return the favor, Twilight's magic vibrating tendril crawled farther down Zane’s womanhood arriving at the captain’s entrance. The tendril tickled Zane’s vaginal lips, causing her to giggle, before gently penetrating and spreading her walls with its telekinetic thickness as it went farther and farther into the captain’s depths until it was tickling her cervix. Zane pulled her tongue out of Twilight’s mouth, a line of saliva following, to let out a drawn out cry of sheer joy.

“Mmm, that’s better than penis.” Zane uttered in a sultry voice. Twilight was enjoying herself too much to form a response. Instead she attacked Zane’s lips with her own again. Then with her tendril, she pulled it back until it was almost out of the lady captain’s passage, before plunging it forward into Zane’s depths till it couldn’t go any farther in, elistening a gleeful moan from the human as her inner muscles throbbed around the vibrating energy.

Falling into a rhythmic groove, Twilight would pull back her telekinetic tendril, then thrust it forward, repeating the process over and over again. Meanwhile, Zane, gradually picked up the pace at which her finger tips rubbed the mare’s sensitive clitoris. Twilight could feel sensual pressure building, becoming stronger with each passing moment, and moving her ever closer to the promise of great pleasure. Zane seemed to be doing the same judging from the pleased vocal outbursts from the human.

As sexual tension rose within Twilight, the time between her tendril thrusts into Zane became shorter and shorter until they were half seconds apart. Zane’s finger rotations matched Twilight’s speed, and the mare could feel her climax nearing.

The captain was the first to succumb to orgasm. She disengaged from mouth to mouth combat, and threw her head back to give voice to her pleasure. Her walls contracted rapidly and rhythmically around Twilight’s vibrating tendril, and the human shuddered up against the mare. Despite the obvious mind blowing ecstasy she was experiencing, the human did not once halt her finger movements on Twilight’s clit, whilst her free hand tightly grasped onto the pony’s flank as if to keep herself from being literally blown away from her extreme pleasure.

After witnessing that and hearing the human’s ecstatic outcries, Twilight finally came as well. The unicorn shivered as waves of electric pleasure pulsed from her marehood, and crawled up her spine to the back of her head. The human fell backwards into the water, making a splash as she spread out her arms to float on her back. Zane grinned like a fool as she rode out her high, her chest rising and falling rapidly. Twilight closed her eyes, also breathing heavily with an expression of perfect joy on her face.

“We have got to do that again sometime.” Zane said.

--

Under the watchful reptile-like eyes of three ach brutes, the Eclipse’s main leaders were gathered in the security monitoring room. Each of the brutes were easily over eight feet tall with hunched backs and thick forward facing necks connected to their heads. The achi looked like the bipedal cross between canine and reptile, but with completely hairless human-like skin that came in red, grey, and brown variants. Almost all the males looked like they abused steroids with their massive chests, heavily muscled arms ending in sharp claws, and muscular legs resembling the hindlegs of a dog but ending in three stubby toes. Protruding from the bottom of their spines were long, muscular, highly maneuverable tails that they’d been known to use to choke enemies with. As for their ugly faces, they had stubby snouts with four nostrils, two on each side, and their ears were pointed and swept back. Their faces could portray many different emotional expressions, although, when they dealt with humans, they seemed to use only two: angry, and more angry.

The security monitoring room was small, with two brutes guarding the only exit. The walls were covered with security camera feeds from various rooms on the ship. Against the back wall of the room, there was a console and a holographic projector. The achi had brought a human tech with them and he was reviewing security recordings at the console. One of the brutes was watching over the tech’s shoulder as he worked. Against the wall in the middle of the room, Joel Mica(Crazy Joel) sat on a couch with Xander Vu. They were watching a 3D cartoon about a talking cat and dog while Joel smoked a joint. He found the show hysterical, but Xander looked bored out of his mind.

Having run out of places to sit, Captain Razoah and Chen Hao leaned against a wall opposite from Joel and Xander. In hushed tones, out of the hearing range of the mercenaries, Chen said he wanted to share Joel’s joint to calm his nerves, but Kal wouldn’t allow it. He wanted his only bodyguard to be in complete control of his faculties if things went south. Chen explained that it was futile for one guy to take on three highly trained ach warriors.

Suddenly, the door slid open, and Commander Garo stepped into the room. He was wearing a very intimidating and well used metal warsuit, painted black with white stripes, covered in dents, burn marks, and scratches. His helmet was off, displaying his ugly grey skinned, heavily tattooed mug, and earrings of gold in each of his pointy ears. There was a slight shimmer emanating from him, indicating his energy shield was up, meaning it would take more than a couple shots from Chen’s plasma pistol to bring the hulking monstrosity down.

“We’ve completed our security sweep of the ship, and it seems that there was nothing to be found.” He said in a deep almost malicious sounding voice.

“I guess this means our business is concluded.” Kal said, moving away from the wall and closer to the commander.

“It would seem so.” Garo started to leave, but suddenly turned back around towards Kal. “There’s just one little problem…” He began walking at the captain as Chen Hao, who was still leaning against the wall, placed a hand on his holstered pistol. “My tech informed me that he detected a patched-in loop replacing the security recordings from yesterday. You wouldn’t know anything about that, now would you?” At that point, the ach was right on top of Kal, his narrowed reptilian-like eyes staring down into the human’s calm hazel ones.

The captain raised a cocky eyebrow and started to say something smug, but he was interrupted as the air was knocked from his lungs when Garo’s metal-covered fist met fragile human chest. With a sickening crack, Kal fell to the ground clutching his broken chest in immense pain. The heads-up display in his eyes flashed red letters, “BRUISED LUNG DETECTED, MULTIPLE BONE FRACTURES DETECTED, SEEK MEDICAL ASSISTANCE.”

Chen drew his plasma pistol, but in a blur the mercenary commander closed the distance and swatted the weapon out of his hand before he could aim and fire. Then he slammed the human’s cranium against the wall, smashing through the screen and hitting the metal surface behind. The sound of skull cracking against metal could be heard as Chen joined his captain on the floor, unconscious, and blood leaking out from his head onto the shiny black tiled floor.

Garo turned to the two remaining crew members in the room. Xander had jumped up out of the couch and thrown his hands up. Joel, however, was still sitting. The joint he was smoking lay at his feet and he looked like he was still processing what just happened as Garo slowly began making his way towards his new victims in an imposing manner. Joel, finally seeming to have processed the situation, said in a very mellow voice, “Woah, chill with the negative vibes, beast man. If it will make you stop hurting people, I’ll tell you what was on this ship.”

Garo stopped. “I’m listening.”

“It was a magical purple unicorn, beast man…”

Garo glared at the human whom looked back at him with squinty red stoner eyes. “I’ve had enough of humans fucking with me today!” He snapped, beginning to walk menacingly towards Joel again.

“For reals; she had a horn, tattoos on her butt, and she could talk.” Joel said, whilst Garo, nearly on top of him looked like he was planning to turn Crazy Joel into Hurting Joel.

“Stop! He’s telling the truth! I saved the recordings!” Shouted Xander Vu.

“Show me.” Garo commanded, ceasing his movement, as he watched Xander quickly make his way over to the console.

“They’re on a hidden database, in a secure file. Just let me input the password.”

From the main projector, a large window manifested, displaying the recording of none other than the magical purple unicorn on the bridge, demonstrating her amazing ability to teleport.

“Where is this creature now?” Garo demanded.

“I don’t kn-” Xander was interrupted when Garo grabbed him by the throat, and lifted him up off his feet. “S-she’s on the Mi Amora!” The engineer spat out as the ach’s sharp claw began digging into his flesh, drawing blood.

Garo released his grip on the human and he fell to the ground clutching his neck. Then the commander asked, “What do you want done with the offenders?” After a moment, he said, “Understood.” Then the ach commander turned to one of his brutes, “Karth wants these four taken to the Leviathan and confined in the brig.” He barked in the thick guttural language of the achi.

“How p-pitiful-” Kal managed to get out in a pain filled voice, pausing to cough agonizingly before continuing, “The mighty Commander Garo... reduced to taking orders from a human... a piece of shit of a human at that.”

Garo opened his left claw and directed his palm at the human that dared to insult him, from it a bolt of non-lethal voltage was expelled, striking the captain. Fortunately, the unpleasant sensation of being tazed by eight million volts of electricity actually alleviated the pain in his chest.

With Kal temporarily incapable of responding with anymore witty remarks as he spasmodically convulsed on the floor, Garo turned back to his brute. “Find these maggots a nice cozy cell.”

“What of their injuries?” The brute asked. “The security guard’s head wound seems serious.”

“See to his injuries, then toss him in the brig when he’s stable.”

“And the captain?”

“Have someone look at him as well, but don’t let them give him painkillers. I want that one to suffer.”

“As you wish, commander.”