//------------------------------// // Lost, Alone, and Unforgotten // Story: Cryo-7 // by Metal Pony Fan //------------------------------// The crew of the unnamed shuttle stood outside the opened doors. A small group of ponies from the town gathered in the dawn light with them. Dew hung from their coats in the slowly warming air. Nine days had passed since the shuttle landed. In that time, all the villagers had the fluid drain from their lungs. Tests on Sparrow, the first patient treated, as well as several volunteers, showed that the fluid was building up again, but was slowed dramatically by limiting exposure to contaminated water. To aid with that effort, Strawberry's water filter was removed from her house, and with her help, rigged up to the town well. And, with the sacrifice of three of the shuttle's beverage dispensers, the filter was modified to produce enough clean water to sustain the village's daily needs. Even so, the draining of lungs would become a monthly ritual if nothing else was done. Radio's recyclers were left set up in the healer's building, and several ponies were trained in their maintenance and operation. Several ponies were also trained in basic first aid and simple emergency procedures, as well as the draining process that would keep them alive. "We've already sent out a distress call," Twilight told Elder Tekrin. She stood stiffly, and spoke formally, holding herself tall and ridding emotion from her face. Her demeanor was one befitting a politician in negotiations, hiding their feelings and their selves. "Once we reach orbit, we'll drop a signal buoy in geosynchronous orbit above the settlement." Astral sighed. She had been like that since returning from Berry's hut. He wasn't expecting her to be ok right off the bat, who would be after learning they lost a friend? But Twilight wasn't allowing herself any emotion, grief, sadness, or otherwise. He hadn't seen a muscle on her face so much as twitch for a week. "With any luck," he added to the alicorn's explanation, "Galactic Assembly aid ships will arrive within the week." Sparrow, standing next to Radio, ruffled the colt's mane. "Even if they don't, the young doctor has provided us with the means to care for ourselves for a long while." "Speaking of the young doctor," Astral glanced back at the shuttle, "did we get everything packed up?" He was in no hurry to leave, but Twilight had expressed her desire to head to the next planet as soon as possible, no doubt wanting to rule out any possibility that one of her other friends was ever there. "I don't want to reach orbit and hear that you left a laser scalpel behind." "I left one on purpose," Radio answered, "well, five, actually. I have extras, we're good to go. I packed everything up and double checked it all days ago, after my leg healed. I'm leaving a lot of stuff behind though, we'll need to resupply soon." "Healed?" Sparrow asked in worry. she grabbed his hoof and pulled it up, looking his leg over carefully. "What did you do to your leg?” "He broke it," Silver-mane chimed in before he could answer. "When we found him at the cemetary, he couldn't walk. He got better quick, huh?" The motherly mare gasped. "You what?" She demanded sternly. Astral laughed as the mare continued to dote on the pegasus. His chuckling faded as he looked over at Tekrin. The two of them had been working side by side this last week, trying to salvage what they could of abandoned farmland, and guiding the villagers in their efforts to rebuild. But despite that, they never took a chance to speak with each other. It was like they both wanted to pretend the last 20 years never happened. He walked over to the old unicorn. "I know we had a rocky reunion, but you, Sparrow, and Berry are the only family I have left. If I ever have time..." Tekrin held up a hoof to stop him. "There is no need to ask. You will always be welcome here, all of you. Ms. Sparkle has even provided me with contact information. Should we have to leave this planet, I will be able to get a hold of you." "Thank you." Astral was about to raise a hoof, offer a shake, but decided against it. It was too formal for family, even as distant as he and Tekrin were, and they weren't on good enough terms for a hug. Perhaps one day, that would change. "Even before the loss Of Serus, I never got to see you unless there was some emergency or formal event going on, but my father always spoke highly of you. I apologize for letting my anger out on you earlier." Tekrin nodded. "The apology is accepted, but unnecessary. I have done more than enough to deserve your anger. I would look forward to you and my granddaughter visiting during happier times." Astral blinked. "Wait, isn't Berry staying with you?" Tekrin's eyebrows pulled together. "She told me... She said she was going with you, and left late last night to gather her belongings." "This is the first I've heard of it." Astral shook his head. "Besides, when I knocked on her door this morning, she said she wanted more sleep." The unicorn winced. He was beginning to get a good feel for Berry's personality. "She still had Radio's Com-unit. Give me a moment." With a sigh, he walked over to the shuttle, up the stairs, and opened the door. Berry jumped at the sudden sound and the natural light that was thrown across the shuttle's interior. She looked up Astral with weary eyes and a guilty smile. "Five more minutes?" Astral stepped over piles of junk, scrap metal, and gutted electronics to pick up the Com-unit next to the earth pony. "You said that earlier." He swirled it around his hoof by the strap as he surveyed the wreckage. All the seats were folded away, leaving the pink pony to sit on the floor in her own personal sea of components. "You know, stowaways usually try to hide their presence on a ship." Berry shrugged and yawned. "I was gonna hide in the back," she muttered sleepily, "but this took longer than I thought. And my soldering gun ran out of battery, and my torch is out of fuel." "Why didn't you recharge it?" Astral gestured to the wall. "There are adjustable power ports right next to you." Berry shook her head. "It's solar powered. I would need another soldering gun to rewire it." She picked up a circuit board. "I only had two or three connections left." Astral inspected the circuit board, and followed it back to the spherical metallic shell it was pulled from. "Is that our signal buoy?" "Yeah," Berry gave the metal housing a lazy shake, listening to the rattle of armor plates, "It's not a very good one, but it works." "You mean, it worked, before you took it apart." "No, it'll still work." She held up a pair of capacitors and pointed to two open slots on the circuit board. "I just need to solder these in place." Astral took the tiny pieces in his magic and looked them over. The markings on them indicated that they were the same value, and were bidirectional, so it didn't matter how they were arranged, as long as they were soldered correctly. "Do you have flux and solder?" Berry looked left, then right, then grabbed a small tin and a chunk of wire from under a plastic face-plate. "Here." She held them out to Astral. Astral took them and gave the pale yellow compound in the tin a tentative sniff. He recognized the scent immediately. "Rockbee wax?" Berry nodded. " I harvest it when it's cold, and the bee's aren't active. It works really well." Astral applied it like normal flux, then looked at the solder. It was rough, likely cast and hammered out by hoof from reclaimed material. He placed his components in place, applied heat with his magic, then touched the solder to the right spots for it to melt into place. It was high temperature solder, designed for use in extreme conditions, so it took a great deal of magic and effort for Astral to get it to melt. When it was done, he wiped the sweat from his forehead and inspected the joints. Clean and shiny, no blobs, perfect. "There you go." Astral offered the circuit board back to Berry. "Now, put it back together. We need it." She looked at the board with a pout. "I wish I could do that," she mumbled before starting to assemble the various parts and pieces. She worked quickly, despite her fatigue, snapping the circuit board into place, and arranging the necessary mechanical pieces around it. She tightened them where necessary, bolted and screwed together. Some parts just slid into place, and one or two made her hold it up for Astral to solder together. After a minute or two of working at that pace, she ran out of parts. All that was left beside her were four machines, a dirty old canvas bag of tools, and stains on the carpeting. "There." She wiped her brow, smearing it with black. "Now the signal buoy can be used for realtime subspace communication." She picked up the second device, her Com-unit. "You'll need this, and the one I left in my room, to make it work." "Will a unit that small send a signal so far?" "It will now." Berry choked back another yawn, tapping at the third machine while she waited for her mouth to close. "I also rebuilt my water purifier again. It doesn't work as fast as it used to, but it can run constantly now." She picked up the last item, a beige plastic housing, matching the rest of the shuttle's decor, with a busted screen. "This, I borrowed parts from... You may need a new one." A piece of plastic startled her by popping out like a springy toy. "Definitely need a new one." "I'll take care of it." Astral nodded towards the back room. "There are beds back there, why don't you go take a nap? I'll bring the filter to Tekrin, and make sure he knows how to use the communicator." "He already knows." Berry stumbled back to the door. "I showed him last night." The door opened, and she took a good look at the bunks. "Ooh, these mattresses aren't all pieced together. They look soft." She wobbled over to the closest one, dumped a bag of Twilight's robes on the floor, and climbed in. "Ohhhh, they are." Astral chuckled. He could reminder times where he had gone weeks without a proper bed to sleep in, and how soft mattresses always seemed after that. "Comfy?" The silence answered him better than she ever could. With a bemused shake of his head, he grabbed the filter and communicator and headed outside. "You lied to me." Twilight shouldered past Astral, headed for the front of the shuttle. "When?" Astral asked in confusion. The alicorn stepped inside the door to the cockpit and looked back. "You told me she was sleeping, in her room, on Sevus." She glared at him as the door swished shut between them. With a scoff, Astral looked over at Radio. "I never said where she was sleeping." The colt shrugged. "She's sleeping pretty well, too." He waved a hoof in front of Berry's face, wondering if he had a marker somewhere in his bags. "Should we wake her up?" "Nah." Astral adjusted Berry's blanket, tucking her in. "Jump won't be over for a few hours, let her rest. You should get some sleep too, you didn't sleep very well last night and I want everybody in top condition for this next planet." "Uh, yeah, about that..." Radio rubbed his leg, and for a moment, Astral was reminded of the first time he saw Ribbon, how small she looked walking into that OR. Astral put a hoof on the colt's shoulder. Last night, he and Radio bunked in the hospital's main floor, on two of the many, happily empty, beds. He had listened the colt toss, turn, and mumble for most of the night, and seemed to be the only one to notice the bags under his eyes. "Are you ok?" Radio shook his head. "What? Yeah." The colt didn't meet Astral's eyes. "I'm fine." Astral wasn't sure he believed the colt, but pressed no further. "If you say so. Get some sleep. When you get up, I want you to give Berry a check up. I think it's safe to say she's never had any real medical attention in her life. Good night." Astral clicked the lights off and stepped out of the back room before closing the door. If he stayed, the colt would just argue, and if he really wasn't tired, he would be out of there in seconds. Astral took a few steps back from the door and waited, silently counting. He reached twenty before deciding the colt was probably already asleep. With a sigh, he walked up to the front of the passenger compartment. He knocked twice on the door separating it and the cockpit. "Twi?" "Go away," came the immediate reply. "Ok. Where should I go?" Astral glanced around the empty cabin. "Not a lot of choices right now, we're hurtling through slipstream at incalculable velocities." He could hear the angry snort through the door. "Like you actually know anything about slipstream technology." "That's it!" Astral hit the button to open the door. When he found it locked, he groaned and reached out with his magic to hit the button on the other side. The door slid open and he stormed in. "Look, I have been trying to get along with you for this mission, and I have been giving you space because of what happened to your friend, but enough is-" Astral stopped when got a good look at the source of his frustration. For the first time, he noticed that the lights were off. The door had closed behind him, and the dim cabin was lit only by the light from the swirling subspace beyond the viewport. That light reflected off tears and metal. Twilight sat in the co-pilot's chair, curled up around the lockbox Berry had given her, crying for the first time. Twilight turned away from him with a muttered, "jerk." Astral sighed and glanced at the pilot's chair. "Yeah, I'm a jerk. Tell me something I don't know." His jacket sat there, partially folded next to Twilight's communicator and a hoofbound journal that could only have come from Sevus. Instead of moving anything, he just sat on the floor next to Twilight's chair. It was getting hard to stay mad at her, even if she had no such reservations about him. "Did you crack the code yet?" Twilight tightened her grip on the lockbox. "I don't want to talk about it." "I noticed that. I noticed that you don't want to talk about anything lately." Astral pushed on the chair, and turned it so they were facing each other. "Look, you're not alone. I know how hard it is to lose someone, but try to remember there are others around you; ponies who rely on you, and ponies you can rely on." Twilight looked up at him for only a second. "Astral, the box..." She looked down at it, running a hoof over it like one would the cover of a treasured book. Astral looked down at it too. "It's locked. So? You'll figure it out. Your friend would have picked a combination you knew." "Astral..." "A date, maybe? A birthday? Lots of ponies use important dates as passcodes, something they won't ever forget." With a loud wail, Twilight dropped the box and fell off her chair in front of him. The box sprung open against the floor, and clattered to stop, empty. Twilight stared at the ground, crying like a newborn. "But I did!" She screamed. "I almost forgot the most important thing!" "Twi-" Astral reached out to her just for her to swat his hoof away. He pulled back with a sigh. He had seen her angry before, but not like this. She was angry at herself this time, not at him, and he wasn't sure how to react. All he could hope to do was draw her out, keep her from withdrawing into the recesses of pain and despair. "What was the code?" "It was a date," she choked out, gasping, sobbing, "the date." She brought her hooves to her head. How could she forget? How could she not have tried that combination first? "Pinkie used the day I moved to ponyville, the day I met my friends." She suddenly looked up at the stallion before her, letting her hooves fall as she stared at him, face blank save for tears. "I failed her, Astral, just like I failed Rainbow. I failed all of them. My friends are dying, and all I can do is show up, years too late to do anything." Astral put a hoof on her shoulder, expecting a slap or rebuke of some kind. There was no resistance though, even as he pulled her to him, letting her head rest on his shoulder. All she did was quietly stare, and for a moment, all he did was silently stroke her back. "Twi," he whispered to her, "You haven't failed them. You've only been out of suspension for what, three years? Everything that happened did so before you could have possibly done anything to change it. Just the fact that you managed to track them down is amazing." He paused when he felt Twilight shift, burying her head in his shoulder, leaving a warm, wet spot in his fur. With each gasping sob, she shook in his hooves. This was the most fragile he had ever seen her, and he didn't like it. He was just starting to get used to the proud know-it-all with the perfect magic. It was hard to believe that this was the same pony. He knew there was nothing he could say to bring that would bring that other pony back. No words, no action would erase the pain she felt now. He knew that. Knew it better than most would. Nothing anyone ever said to him made the loss of his home and family easier to take. The only thing that he could do was sit there, let her cry, and try to understand. But, he didn't understand. This mare, this alicorn, the world she came from, or the ties that bind her to this mission she dragged him into; he understood none of it. More than ever before, he found himself wanting to. This wasn't just a job anymore. This wasn't some small mission that he could walk away from at the end. He wasn't entirely sure what it was really, but he was sure about one thing. He wanted to understand. "Twi," he whispered, "tell me about your friends."