Minuette let go of Moondancer and climbed up the little ship to the hatch she’d entered by. She put her ear to it and listened carefully. The static noise was still going on, but as she listened it didn’t seem to be moving. It was, well, static. Remaining at the same volume and the same intensity. Moondancer shuffled nervously below her, trying to fix her bent glasses, and Minuette remained with her ear next to the hatch, trying to hear anything that might give away the creature’s movements.
Frustrated, she shook her head and pulled her ear away. There probably wasn’t going to be anything for it but to take a peek and hope. Waiting would be entirely on the creature’s side. If it had survived this long without food and water, it could probably survive much longer still.
“Alright, I’m going to open the hatch. Be ready to cushion your fall with magic when we need to jump out, it’s a pretty long way down.” Minuette said.
“Wait! He hurt my horn when he was dragging me around here. It hurts to do magic. You’ll need to help me!” Moondancer said.
“Okay, okay. I’ll catch you. Quiet down. We can’t let it know we’re here.” Minuette said.
Moondancer pulled herself closer to Minuette, and Minuette put a hoof on the hatch. She pushed up gently, hoping the metal wouldn’t creak at all. She was greeted by a sickly green glow outlining the single mirror-like eye of the creature. It knew they were in the ship and was just waiting for them to come back out!
“JHNGTMLMYZTAGLOT! BAHBAHWHZZZZZSSSSST!”
It reached out a claw and grabbed the hatch. Minuette yelped and released it, and dropped back into the model ship, landing on top of Moondancer. There was only one exit, and the creature was now occupying it!
“Back down! Back down! It’s here!” Minuette shouted, hooves tangled with Moondancer’s.
“Ahhh! AHHH!” Moondancer screamed, as the two struggled with each other.
They got their hooves untangled, and hurried back down the short passage to the bottom of the model ship, but the creature wasn’t sitting still. It had floated up and inserted itself into the hatch, squeezing its bulk down into the entrance as its glow slowly began to fill the tiny nook. Minuette and Moondancer made it back down to the furnace area, but that was as far as they could go. The sickly glow of the creature was getting slowly brighter as it came down toward them, increasing their panic.
“We need to get out!” Moondancer yelled.
“How!? There’s no exit!” Minuette shouted back, her head swiveling left and right looking for anything they could use as a weapon. She picked up a bone with her magic, but it crumbled, too burnt to be of any use.
“Can’t you melt a hole in the wall or floor?” Moondancer suggested, shaking Minuette in a panic.
“Maybe? That would take so much time, though!” Minuette said.
“Well do it! We don’t have any other choice!” Moondancer shouted back at her.
Minuette glanced at the one small entrance to the furnace room, then looked at the patchwork metal walls, then lit up her horn, and focused. A beam of orange heat came out and struck the wall, causing sparks to fly and the metal itself to turn red. One of the objects, which looked like a chair, actually heated up faster than the others, and she grinned. This might be quicker than she had expected if she could make it weak enough to bend instead of melt. The problem would be keeping the creature busy until then.
“Keep it busy, Moondancer! I think we can do this!” Minuette called.
“What?! How!” Moondancer said incredulously.
“I don’t know! Think of something!” Minuette said in exasperation. “If you don’t, we’re both literally toast!”
Moondancer made a noise, but her hoofsteps faded away. There was a whack, followed by that awful voice the creature had. Then came a heavy thud that shook the entire ship they were in. Minuette wanted to look, but she had to get this open. The sparks were getting brighter, and she used a hoof to block some of the light. She should really be blocking her eyes with magic, but all of it was spent on making the beam as powerful as possible. There was another whack from behind her, then a crunch and the sound of breaking glass followed by the static getting louder, then panicked yelling.
“We need to go! Now! Now! Now! Now!” Moondancer shouted.
Minuette didn’t want to stop, but Moondancer had gotten even more frightened. She wanted to look, but instead she focused her magic on the red-hot section of the model and pushed outward with all her might. With an ominous creak, the metal bent outward and discrete sections of metal separated from each other. With a spray of sparks, some molten metal, and a loud bang, a hole burst open in the side of the ship. Minuette didn’t look, back, grabbed Moondancer, and jumped. She felt something touch her flank as she leaped, and she was grateful she had sliced off her tail earlier.
The two ponies landed in a heap, Minuette too weak to soften their fall, but she pulled Moondancer up and began galloping away toward the smaller tunnels, still not looking back. She was rewarded for her expediency when there was a massive thud behind her, and she knew the creature had simply jumped or fallen out of the hole after them. It was simply a race to the exit now.
“Moonie I think *huff* you just made it angry!” Minuette said, beginning to feel the strain of all the magic she’d been using.
“I... I kicked it in the eye.” Moondancer replied as they ran. “That’s not an eye.”
Minuette was confused, but further questions would have to wait, they needed to get somewhere safe. Preferably out of here and back to their own ship. The princesses could do what they wanted with this thing after. Maybe THEY could come out here and deal with the creature. Minuette wanted to be back on land where she could sleep without having worry about that awful noise.
Speaking of the noise, it was louder than before, and she couldn’t hear the creature’s hoofsteps, which meant it was probably flying again. She cursed inwardly and lowered her head, pulling Moondancer along toward the duct. They dashed toward it, Minuette’s dim light leading the way, and she magically shoved Moondancer in and up the duct, then slid in afterward and started climbing, straining to push Moondancer along. Moondancer thankfully caught on fairly quickly and grabbed onto the sides herself, climbing up the duct and giving Minuette a break.
“NUMAGUBSHTOOOOOF! *BZZZT!*”
The creature yelled and a claw burst through the metal wall, grasping at the air above Minuette’s head. It pulled back out, then ripped into the metal below her. It was unable to see them, but it was trying nonetheless. Their hooves were not exactly stealthy, clattering against the metal as they did. The claw stopped after the third try, and instead, it seemed to be waiting for them to move and betray their position. The ponies obliged and climbed up further, eliciting more violent punches through the wall at them, until they pulled away from the wall and slipped under the upper floors where they could easily run thanks to their size.
The two ponies dashed pell-mell down the maintenance tunnel. Minuette wasn’t sure where they were going, but she knew they couldn’t stop moving, so she just ran, this time making sure to keep pace with Moondancer. Thankfully, she could see Moondancer out of the corner of her eye, and she seemed to be keeping up well enough this time. Fear and adrenaline probably had a lot to do with that.
“Where *huff* are we going?” Moondancer asked.
“I honestly *haaah* don’t know. But we can’t stop.” Minuette answered.
“We need *puff* a door. I remember ours. Follow me.” Moondancer said, and took the lead.
“Wait!” Minuette gasped. “That door doesn’t work!”
“I can make it work!” Moondancer puffed back.
Minuette had no choice but to follow as Moondancer dashed ahead of her down the tunnel. Minuette could see the glow of the creature following them. It was floating along behind them, but it didn’t seem to be catching up. Thankfully it was no longer destroying the ship to get at them, maybe that would work in their favor. She doubted it, especially once they had to get out of the tunnel at the airlock. That glow meant something. The WISP meant something, but damned if she knew what. It was very concerning, and that wisp made the creature that much more dangerous to deal with. It would never have caught Moondancer if it hadn’t been for that thing.
There was a crash and part of the grate ahead of Minuette buckled. Moondancer ducked and almost fell, but get her hoofing. Minuette had to duck underneath the bent fleer as a claw ripped through the floor and grabbed at her. Once again she was glad her tail had been cut off, as she felt it’s nasty, but thankfully blunt, claws brush her flank. The creature squawked and hissed above them in what she hoped was frustration as they raced past it hopefully toward a door.
Minuette followed Moondancer as the latter pony glanced left and right as she reached crossroads. Knowing Moondancer, she was probably keeping a mental tally of exactly where they were in the ship. She wouldn’t put it past her being able to do so. Minuette had no such talent at all. She was just here for brute force. Eventually Moondancer stopped and pointed at the grating above them.
“Here! Quickly!” Moondancer said.
Minuette didn’t hesitate, and grunted as her horn lit up, she pushed up with all her might and the floor ripped out of its moorings and flew off to the side. Moondancer jumped out of the tunnel and Minuette followed. She glanced around back to where they had come from and she saw the glow of the creature swiftly advancing toward them. She was completely disoriented, but Moondancer grabbed her by the hoof and pulled her down a hallway, then turned a corner. Minuette found herself at the door they had entered by. The inner door still wide open, and the outer door, the one that blocked their path, still shut tightly.
“Moondancer, this isn’t going to help, it’s broken! Why did we come here? We should be looking for different one!” Minuette cried, glancing back down the hall.
“No no! Quickly, hit the button with lightning!” Moondancer said.
Minuette gave her a strange look. “What? Why…?”
“Just do it! And be ready to protect us from space!” Moondancer yelled.
“Space… what?” Minuette said in confusion.
She didn’t get a chance to ask, because Moondancer grabbed her by the head and put her horn against the broken button. Minuette was confused and surprised, but out of reflex because her friend was so insistent, she lit up her horn and fired lightning like she had been told.
The room lit up briefly, and sparks flew out of the broken button, singeing her fur. She pulled away and saw Moondancer smiling wide. The whole airlock lit up for a moment, and the inner door started sliding erratically shut. The creature was down the hall and racing toward them through the air, carried by that unseen force of the wisp. Minuette could see what Moondancer was so concerned about now. She had damaged the creature’s ‘eye’, and it certainly was not an eye at all.
The glossy surface of the helmet, because that’s what it must have been, had been shattered, leaving only jagged pieces behind. Inside it was the remains of some creature that had long since died. A strange skull sat nestled inside the helmet, with wires attached to its bones and stray hair that must have been sitting in there undisturbed for who-knows how long. The constant hissing noise was coming from the creature’s jaw, which was slack, but illuminated by the unholy light emanating from the skull’s empty eyes. The same sickly-green glow the wisp gave off.
Minuette could only stare as the limp corpse of the creature sailed toward them, but her view was cut off as the inner door finally slid shut. She felt a hoof on her withers as Moondancer hugged her tightly, the creature pounding on the door in front of them.
“Minuette, put up the protection spell.” Moondancer said.
“Oh… yeah.” Minuette answered, her horn lighting up to ward both her and Moondancer.
They turned to the outer door as it opened up, and they were pulled out by the pressure, spat into the luminiferous aether unceremoniously as the inner door buckled under the creature’s assault behind them.
Minuette and Moondancer floated in the luminiferous aether, untethered to anything or anypony. Minuette kept the wards on both of them and clung to Moondancer tightly, holding on for dear life as they twisted and spun away from the alien ship. Minuette looked around for their ship, but couldn’t get a good bead on anything as the two ponies kept spinning. It wasn’t making her sick, but it was far too disorienting for her to get a good read on anything. She was getting exhausted, but she knew she had to try to contact the ship, even if she couldn’t see it. She spared a little bit of magic to try to reach out to the ship for communication, but found nothing. She pulled it back in and focused instead on protecting herself and Moondancer, hoping against hope that they would be rescued soon.
“Minuette, I can’t see the ship!” Moondancer said. Their shared ward allowed them to communicate from such close proximity.
“I can’t either. Everything is spinning too fast.” Minuette said.
“What do we do? You can’t hold the ward forever.” Moondancer said.
“I tried to contact the ship, but found nothing. Can you try?” Minuette asked.
“I… I don’t know. I’m still a little hurt from earlier.” Moondancer said.
“Please, Moonie, I’m exhausted. I can’t keep this up for much longer. I’m trying, but I’m thoroughly spent.” Minuette said. “You’re the only one who can save us now.”
Moondancer looks hesitant, but closes her eyes and concentrates. Minuette closes her own eyes and concentrates on keeping the ward going. Her friend will pull them through. She was smart, and a good unicorn. She could manage it. Minuette concentrated hard on just making sure the ward was going, and nothing else.