//------------------------------// // Royal Visit // Story: Brain, Brawns, and a Lot of Ponies // by Damaged //------------------------------// Kiera ran a system check. She spun tasks out to her coprocessors, filling them up with memory and data-channel tests, then she ran through her systems one by one. 'Life support is good, scrubbers are working at proper efficiency, oxygen processors are within spec.' The shellperson hummed softly through her speakers, a wandering tune that had no writer and would never be properly recorded. Kiera threw patterns up on the main screen, continuing her checks all the way through to her sensor network. She flashed her lights through color spectrum, picking up all the hues perfectly. 'And here I am, both my brawns mutated by radiation I can't even detect, and hoping an inch of titanium will shield me.' The thought, of course, soured her nutrients and Kiera followed a simple meditation to banish it, then set about restoring her own pH balance. Everything about her body was in order, her squishy one, and her ship one. 'Princess Twilight is busy working on her magic, methodical and precise, even though I understand none of it. Oh well, record it, run it through the language systems later.' That moment she was switching over to peek on her brawns, Kiera's movement sensors alerted her that something was near the lift. Milliseconds later, her cameras were powered fully and feeding her directly. "Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, it is my honor to welcome you aboard the KDB-1329." She lowered her lift without thinking, opening the doors. "Please excuse me not having a brawn to escort you, I thought it best to let them explore a little." Celestia's ears focused on the source of the voice first, then her head tracked to it and bowed a little. "Probably for the best, we have much to talk about." She stepped forward, onto the platform that had lowered, as if by magic. Of course the alicorn knew it wasn't magic, the whole ship seemed like a dead-spot in the flow of arcane life in the world. "We do not require you to call us 'princess' all the time." Luna was caught between wanting to still be considered a leader, but also wanting to be able to talk in a more relaxed state. The truth was, she was extremely excited. "Thank you for inviting us on your vessel, Kiera." Kiera felt the mass of each of the two royal ponies, she logged it all and filed it away. Every nanosecond of video was stored too. "Of course, Luna." She bit her metaphorical tongue before she addressed Princess Celestia the same. 'Was that the "royal we"? Am I over-thinking?' "Would Princess Celestia like me to address her the—" Kiera stopped when the white alicorn started to giggle furiously. "Sorry, but I had to ask, Celestia." "It is perfectly fine." Celestia barely got her giggle fit under control. "How would you like to be addressed?" It was an offer and honor both, and Kiera knew it. "Just Kiera would be fine. My designation is KDB-1329, but that isn't really needed here. Welcome aboard… me." It was quite the treat to have royalty put you on first-name terms, and while Kiera appreciated it, she still wasn't ready to just relax her guard completely. Luna stepped from the lift and paused. " 'Aboard me'?" She looked around the interior. "This is all 'you'?" "It is, Luna. I am linked… bound, into the ship in a way that everything here is me. I can feel your weight on my deck. I can taste the air you breathe in and out. I can even see every photon of light bouncing from your fur." Kiera watched Luna's eyes widen a little. "That is truly amazing." Luna looked around and spotted the lights pointing down a hallway. "Are we to follow this?" She was acutely aware of every breath she took and every step she made. "Please, it will lead you to the control room." Kiera adjusted her voice, moving it down the hall before the ponies. "Is there something I can get you? Tea? Coffee? Something to nibble?" She paused, noticing the sudden raising of Luna's smile, the tilt of her eyes to Celestia. "If you have some tea, and cakes?" Celestia was pushing her sister, trying desperately to loosen Luna up so she could relax. "Maybe… cheesecake?" Luna could hold her laughter back no more. Her giggle turned into a bark of laughter, before she covered her snout with a hoof, eyes wide. "You will forgive Luna, she was a little worried that she might have caused damage to you, during the incident, and I needed to help her relax." Celestia reached a wing out and hugged Luna to her side with it. "Speaking of which, exactly what happened?" Kiera finished assembling the afternoon tea in the mini-fab in the cockpit. "Well, it started like…" ~~~~~+++++~~~~~ "Kiera, have you got the probes on their final test?" Dustin leaned back in the pilot's seat. The smooth synth music that bounced through the cabin was soft enough that it didn't impede their conversation one bit. "Double and triple checked. Launching the first." Kiera adjusted her hull, sending one of her probes out and igniting its engine. Pushing the little device into a stable orbit, she engaged all sensors. "Oh wow." The exclamation stole Dustin's attention away from his mini-synth composer. "What's up, Kay?" He looked at the control board as it glowed to life. "That… that is a castle. What is that?" He pointed at another section nearby the city. The display zoomed in smoothly to show a town. "Civilization!" Belay woke at the yell, her head lifting. "Kiera? What is the shouting about?" She rubbed at her eyes, trying to shift the gunk that sleep left there. An image appeared on the screen beside her bed, it zoomed in to show structures, complex ones. "Life? Real… not wormy... life?" "Real life. Buildings…" Kiera actually trailed off. "Definitely not worms, look at this!" The high-detail image focused in, panning along to a train that was powering along tracks. "Railway. They must be so close to space-travel it might even happen in our lifetimes!" Belay was on her feet, pulled on her ship-suit and piled out into the hall in the blink of an eye. "Dust! What have you got? Kiera, record everything!" Her voice gained a sing-song quality that matched the beat of the synth playing. "Do you have an image of them?" "Working on it." Kiera scanned around. "Plenty of farm stock, look like small horses… oh, no way!" Excitement flooded Kiera's voice as she made the realization. "They are our sapient species. Look, they resemble old-earth equines… sort of." "They're not even slightly wormy." Dustin gave a wide grin to his partner. "Oh come on, that will never get tired. Kiera, can we bring up the pictures again?" "I am sorry, Dust, had to delete them to make room." Kiera's voice stiffened a little, a sure sign to her brawns that she was lying through her speakers. Belay walked over to the column, the outer part of the titanium pillar where Kiera physically was, and hugged it. "I still owe you, remember?" "This is a conspiracy!" Dustin started rifling through his private data, looking for his own copy of the pictures of Belay trying to communicate with worms. Peripherally, he noticed night fall on the big city; then the whole ship trembled and shook. ~~~~~+++++~~~~~ "That was me." Luna felt tiny, she watched the two humans thrown around inside Kiera's cabin, the one they were in right now. Dustin managed to strap down into the chair, but not before reaching out to Belay. "Can… can we skip this bit?" Kiera realized just how right it was to trust the ponies, as one of their diarchs cried for her brawns taking minor injuries. She paused the playback. "Sorry, I can promise you, Luna, that they didn't suffer any wounds from it." Quickly, Kiera edited out the footage of Dustin throwing up from the high-G shifts. "You didn't know what we were, and no one is hurt." ~~~~~+++++~~~~~ Dustin wiped his mouth and shuddered at the horrible taste. "Kiera, what was that? Do they have weapons systems?" He reached his clean hand out, dancing it over the controls to play back the event from every possible sensor Kiera possessed. "We just shifted laterally, nearly half the length of the planet." Kiera's voice was shaky, her nutrients had run to acid again and she was halfway to a good panic. "Nothing picked it up, absolutely nothing. One minute we were in a stable orbit, then we were pulled into a geo-stationary one, right above…" "That city." Belay finished, pointing at the screen that showed the mountaintop castle now in darkness. "Hold about. Kiera, what just happened to the moon?" Jaw dropping open, Belay read the stats that showed not only had they moved, but a celestial body had as well. "Are they projecting raw gravity? How can… there isn't even a heat signature, nothing to show that enough energy to shift a moon was just expended!" Dustin was flicking through a whole heap of readouts. "Kiera, can you move at all?" The ship rumbled, shook, then a soft sigh came from the speakers as the big engines wound down. "No, and I don't dare engage FTL this close to a gravity well." Fear was in her voice. Kiera was a brainship, untouchable in terms of performance and intelligence—and she was helpless. She realized the futility of her situation. She worked to repair and balance her fluids, then started her little relaxation meditation. "Guys, whatever is going on, we can't do anything about it. Whoever has done this will either contact us, shift us elsewhere, or let us go. I have my sensors turned up to max to catch any of those." It was a dismissal and both brawns knew it. ~~~~~+++++~~~~~ "I don't know why I held you, it just… you looked… nice. I wanted to show you to all our ponies." Luna face had fallen about as far as it could, matching her mood. Then something caught the corner of her eye, something she intrinsically knew. A star-field spread out before her, vivid and strange. She was captivated. "This is where we are from." Kiera lifted the star-field out with one of her holographic projectors. It now took up a cube in front of the screen. "This particular one is where I was born." A tiny star suddenly had a little arrow pointing to it. "I thought you might like to see more of the sky." The raw excitement in Luna's features was unmistakable. 'Gotcha.' "What about this one?" Luna lifted a forehoof up and touched near a dark section of space that had a double-beam of energy pouring out of it. "That looks really pretty…" "It is… complicated." Kiera was just bringing up the black hole, when Celestia cleared her throat. "Oh, uh, yeah. I guess we should wait until after this." She felt just like she was back in school, and had been caught playing games during rest period; if a shellperson could blush, Kiera would have. "This cake is wonderful." Celestia gave Kiera time to close the star-field down and get the display back on the events that transpired to have her planted on Equus. ~~~~~+++++~~~~~ Dustin was at the far end of his shift. He had sent Belay back to bed, and found his own eyes drifting closed now. "Kiera, you got this watch?" In response the pilot seat slumped back, cradling him. "You're the best…" The moment sleep took Dustin, he jerked awake. He wasn't in the chair, he wasn't even on the ship. "What is going on? Am I asleep? What—" A pony floated down from the bright moon above him, a moon that hadn't been there a moment ago. "Hello?" ~~~~~+++++~~~~~ "I remember this bit." Luna cut in on the spoken log from Dustin, thankfully Kiera paused it the moment she started to speak. "I was a little worried they were invaders, you understand I was a little on edge after that changeling attack…" "My brawns didn't report any aggression, just confusion that finally led to the invitation to meet." Kiera closed the playback, figuring that Luna had explained to Celestia the actions in the dream. "The only remaining thing of note is Dust and Bel's… change." She brought up the footage of the two humans climbing onto the lift. ~~~~~+++++~~~~~ Dust was excited. "A horse!" "Pony." Belay shook her head. "And you know it. Keep those kinds of words down." She reached over and tapped the lift controls. The platform started to descend, smooth as silk. But something started to go very, very wrong. "K-K-Kiera?" Dustin brought a hand to his belly. "I think something doesn't agree with us." He felt like his insides were twisting around. Looking to his side, Belay wasn't doing much better. "Your suits are still sealed, nothing has breached containment!" Kiera was in a blind panic. Pulling the lift back up, she suddenly realized how helpless she was to help them. "Try to get to the med bay." She watched in horror as both Belay and Dustin's suits twisted and shifted, kinking in odd ways and changing. At last it came to Kiera, what was happening to her brawns. "You are turning into ponies…"