Twilight Sparkle - 13th of Faust, 1st year of Harmony
749,559.51 A.H.
Prisoner Transport Bay 2, VOC Meermin -- Ithaa-Phea System, Noctae Sector
Two small, orange stars danced around one another as they had for eons. They had once held the title of sun, back when the cosmic twins bathed an inhabited world in their life giving rays. An intelligent species had once looked from the surface of the once-vibrant green rock four orbits out from the former suns and gave them names.
Ithaa and Phea, named for the gods they had represented to the people whose life had originated through the slow transfer of energy from those stars to their world. Their religion had crushed its competitors to dust. Even governments had fallen before its political might. Seven billion souls prayed to their creators for thousands of years, never advancing beyond the invention of steel blades and wooden sailing ships, lest they offend mighty Ithaa and Phea by reaching a level too close to their power, and invoke their genocidal wrath upon the face of Tustea.
Their religion had been a sham. The clergy enjoyed a technologically enabled lifestyle, hidden away from the commoner’s eyes in underground cities with full access to the treasures the galaxy had to offer by way of the pirate fleets whom they allowed to use their system as a safe harbor.
There was a grand irony to the situation. The two orange dwarfs had indeed been the cause of life’s emergence upon their world, as all suns are. The unassailable march of entropy carried some of their energy to Tustea, providing the catalyst for abiogenesis, as all suns do.
The First Race had tampered with the natural evolution taking place upon Tustea, as they had done with billions of worlds within the Milky Way. Although, one can hardly call seeding a world with a few bits of DNA and some microorganisms “divine”. Besides, it was the suns which had breathed life into mere inanimate matter.
In a way, the two stars truly had given them the gift of life.
Five hundred years ago, the clergy upon Tustea became aware of a way to increase their race’s sorcerous might, and the number of magi they could produce. It was believed that by tapping into the metaphysical hearts of their suns, they could transfer power into their people directly, creating something the galaxy feared: an entire species of psions.
The Orion Arm was no stranger to the metaphysical powers available to a select few. Over the last four hundred years, the Federal Republic of Orion had safeguarded psions, spellcraft, and arcane lore. They had but four centuries of development in what they saw as the field of arcane science. A species consisting of all, or even mostly psi-adept individuals would likely have thousands of years of development in that field. That extremely dangerous, deadly, useful, industrious field.
The Tusteans believed they could use that fear to their political advantage, and install themselves as the controlling power within known space. The “Solar Upgrade” to their already naturally high levels of arcane might would be what they required to assert their dominance over their galactic neighbors. It could be explained to the commoners as a gift from their gods, and those not a part of the clergy could be filtered, kept minimally powered.
The plan failed.
Ithaa and Phea did not possess the type of arcane power the priests had believed lay within their hearts. They reached for the power of the gods, and that power crushed the minds of every man, woman, and child on Tustea. A wave of arcane energy washed over the planet, warping the biosphere beyond recognition and scorching most everything off the fourth rock from the suns.
The Federated Republic of Orion sent some science ships to determine the origin of the psionic wave, which had reached into neighboring systems and killed half the population of a science station two stars over. The science ships found the now dead world, and downgraded the suns to stars. The psionic energy burning within the system was so intense the system was marked as a hazardous area. No one was to enter it under pain of atomization.
Not by the guns of Star League ships, but by the still burning invisible fire which engulfed the system.
The clergy’s lie had been true all along.
The system was dead and declared a memorial site, as all home systems are should their race pass into the annals of history. A memorial site no one ever visited, so as to prevent their brains from melting.
There was but one problem: the arcane fire engulfing the system burned out within a few years, and no one noticed. No one, that is, except for the pirates everyone had forgotten about.
They couldn’t have been happier. Now, not only would no one be poking their noses into the Ithaa-Phea System, but they didn’t even have to pay for the convenience of an anonymous harbor. The Nova Wing had taken on the duty of maintaining the lie, and raked in several prime raiding grounds as tributes from other fleets for their efforts.
A patch of space above Tustea warped and rippled as spacetime churned and boiled. A black ship slid out of the distortion at near-luminal speeds.
The ship resembled a cigar, long and cylindrical, with rounded ends. Spine-like towers rose up from the dorsal segment, and combined with the talon-like forward-swept wings to make the ship look like a predator flying towards its prey. A silver skull featured prominently on its bow as both a figurehead and a ram.
The NW Elusive’s gravity engine kicked into high gear, burning hot and bright as it guided the ship towards the dead world below, using its much greater gravity to help slow down.
Its surf drive switched on and entered braking mode. The drive’s field inverted, using the natural streams of tachyons to decelerate instead of accelerate. The black ship shook slightly as it came into orbit around Tustea, resting nearly four-hundred-thousand kilometers above the tomb world.
The Elusive’s jump on the course from Equus to the Fleet’s hidden base was complete. The ship was in a safe harbor with no eyes upon it. Her captain gave the order to transition from raid mode to cruise mode.
The ship’s predatory visage shimmered and rippled as hundreds of holoprojectors shut down. The black hull transitioned to a light cyan color, one commonly seen on civilian cargo ships. The spines and other adornments vanished as the projector’s hardlight constructs were turned off. The larger spines were “replaced” by comms masts and docking tubes. The smaller ones hid nothing at all.
Other holoprojectors switched on, transforming the skull-ram into a large bulbous bow with two large observation ports. Again, a feature common on civilian cargo ships which also transported some passengers. Everyone traveling the void for the first time likes to see things from orbit.
The ship’s many guns retracted downwards into the deck. Hatches sealed over the recessed gun bays as each gun vanished beneath the top-most layer of hull plates. Holographic projections flicked into existence, blurring the lines between the hatches and the hull until the gaps couldn’t be seen visually.
The ship’s scan-splice system switched on, ready to intercept scans and send pre-recorded data back to hide the ship’s true nature from electronic detection. Unless the ship was boarded by a Star League inspection force who knew what to look for, the ship would look like a normal long-haul cargo liner to all but the most intense targeted scanners in the Galaxy. Even when docked at a space-port.
There remained only one part in the ship’s disguise. The captain tapped a hidden command into the ship’s computer, and the transponder was switched over. The battlecruiser NW Elusive became the cargo liner VOC Meermin. The transformation was complete.
The still-healing incision under Twilight’s left ear itched maddeningly. The wound had been made by a Nova Wing surgeon, who had crudely installed a translator so Twilight and the other captives would be able to understand their captors’ commands.
A unicorn’s body relies mostly on its magic to heal, and the tank Twilight had been forced into was designed to cut her off from sources of mana and disrupt her casting ability. The thick, red, syrup-like gel which filled her tank was also to blame for both the itching and the slow healing.
It wasn’t the first time Nova Wing had captured a wizard, or a psion as the Galaxy called them. This was the first time they had captured five of them at once, however. More importantly, it was the first time they had captured one of Twilight’s caliber.
Nobody had known exactly what someone with that much raw power was capable of. The initial reading suggested she may be able to cast while unconcious. Cryo likely wouldn’t prevent her from causing the crew serious harm. She had to be specially stored.
Twilight’s legs were bound behind her back, twisted into a painful knot, and secured by welded chains. She had been blindfolded and muzzled with a steel visor, and then placed into the ship’s single psi-deprivation tank. She had no idea where her friends were being held, but she knew what had been done to contain them.
At least I’m not frozen like everypony else. Twilight squirmed in the confines of her tank, seeking any way to force the lid open.
She knew it opened via a lid above her. She’d heard it open when she’d been placed inside.
Are alien wizards so dangerous they can still use their magic while frozen? Is that why I get special treatment?
Twilight felt her head touch the bottom of her tank. She’d long accepted the fact that she could breathe the gel she’d been placed into. Her tank lacked any air-pockets; if she couldn’t breathe the gel, she would have died days ago.
In spite of being unable to find which way air bubbles floated, Twilight still knew the bottom from the top. The goop was slightly thicker downwards, and she could still feel the pull of gravity on her body.
If I can get away, I can get help. I can’t take this ship on my own. My friends can’t help, either. Not with taking the ship, and we would need to if we wanted to go home. We don't have weapons, and Rarity doesn't know any battle magic. I learned that last time… What kind of mare doesn't even learn a stun bolt?
Twilight’s first escape attempt had been shortly after she saw Applejack being “examined”. In her rage, she had killed six of the pirates and gotten four of her friends free. She could still remember the Captain’s words when he had interrupted her attempts to get Applejack out of the medical lab.
“Do you have the power to reassemble her body? No? We do. Be a good girl and surrender, or I’ll cut the life support and she’ll die as a brain in a jar.”
If the Captain hadn’t been protected by a powerful personal forcefield, and Twilight’s magic hadn’t been exhausted from trying to heal Applejack, she might have been able to overpower him. Like the other alien pirates whose faces still haunted Twilight’s nightmares.
If I had just tried to get myself out in the first place, I would have been able to bring back help by now. I… I killed people, and I still didn’t get away… Evil people. Who deserved it, but… I—
The Elusive’s intercom clicked loudly. “All hands, we have arrived in Tustea orbit. All shifts are to immediately change into civilian uniforms. There will be an hour’s rest for the A, B, and C, shifts. D shift is to conceal all illicit cargo for travel through League space.”
Twilight’s ears flicked as she heard the announcment over the intercom. The walls of the psi-deprivation tank muffled the captain’s words, but she understood them. Her translator may have been crudely installed, but it did the job perfectly. No one wants their slave to have even the slightest chance to misunderstand an order.
Twilight’s eyes lip up as hope burned through her heart. Conceal all illicit cargo? That means someone will come do something to my tank. I already feel horrible… I wont feel worse if I… If I escape again.
Twilight closed her eyes, took a deep breath of goo, wondered how she hadn’t ever choked on the stuff, then focused her mind on gathering together what little sparks of magic she had left.
The sparks swirled and flowed sluggishly. They didn’t want to move; the red gunk pulled at them, demanded they rest within it. Twilight’s will pulled harder. The last scraps of her magic pooled in her mind, leaving her with barely enough to cast her chosen spell.
Twilight’s horn didn’t glow as she cast. It sparked, crackled, and fizzled. Like a wet firework. All ambient energy was sucked into the goo like dust out an airlock. But her spell worked.
Twilight’s body convulsed. Her heart rate jumped erratically, high one second, low the next, then critical condition, only to return to being incredibly high. Her breathing desynchronised, her left lung stopped, her right went into overdrive. Her brain waves seemed to scramble, sending random noise rather than discernible signatures.
Three rooms over, the pirate monitoring her pod spat out his sandwich and hit the alarm. Despite Twilight’s body seeming to be in the middle of suffering a heart attack, stroke, and respiratory failure, Twilight was quite fine, and fully alert. The Play Dead spell she had invented when her young classmates had told her to ‘drop dead!’ had always been extremely convincing.
Even Princess Celestia had fallen for it.
“Medical team to Prisoner Number Five! She’s dying. It looks like she tried to cast a spell in there.”
Twilight’s body shook violently, then went limp. Twilight smiled behind her steel muzzle. She could lay like this for as long as she wanted to. The spell would keep her alive for several days. I hope Princess Celestia wont be mad I used this again… I did promise I wouldn’t after I traumatized those bullies. And her. And mom… Shining… Dad… Passersby… Probably shouldn’t have used it in the Canterlot Mall.
Within seconds of the alarm, three pirates converged on Twilight’s tank. The lid was opened a second after they arrived. With expert care, Twilight was lifted out of the goo, set on a hover-sled, and given a quick check with a bioscanner.
The moment she was out of the tank, Twilight felt ambient mana around her. Much less than back on Equus, but enough to slowly start charging herself up. She was fairly certain she had just enough body fat to burn in place of calories to quick-charge herself to ten percent once she gathered enough mana to kickstart the process.
She would need about five minutes.
Twilight could hear the pirate’s cloaks fluttering and rustling as they moved. Their uniforms were absurd in her opinion: the Nova Wing outfitted its members with black, knee-length leather boots, white pants with a red stripe down the side of each leg, a black leather jacket with gold piping, and red-lined cloaks with the outside being made from a shimmery blue fabric which looked like a dying star.
A potent musk like spent gunpowder, melted plastic, and broccoli-with-cheese assaulted Twilight’s nose. She remembered that smell. There was at least one Furlan present.
Twilight did her best to prevent her mind from reconnecting to her body as the urge to vomit overtook her.
Furlans had made Twilight’s skin crawl from the moment she saw them. They were tall, thin, noseless-bipeds with elongated limbs, clawed hands and feet. No ears. No fur, just leathery, yellow-tinted, diseased-looking, oily skin. Fangs. A mouth full of them. No normal teeth. A long, rat-like tail tipped with an envenomed stinger. The way their hands oozed a digestive enzyme… The way the one she saw earlier could just grab lumps of flesh off an uncooked animal and eat the mush it made with a touch...
They were like something right from her fillyhood nightmares. Furlans were something beyond creepy, but entirely different from horrying.
That’s before you took into account how they smelled. Once you did, your nightmares are liable to have nightmares of their own.
The surgeon attending Twilight sighed. She may have been a pirate, but she was still a doctor. “There’s lifesigns, but they are very faint. If we knew more about her species, I could keep her alive. There’s nothing I can do with the tools on me, and she won't make it to the infirmary.”
Twilight recognised the way she sounded. She was one of those plant-people. How a plant could ever evolve intelligence, much less a means of locomotion and tool use was beyond her. It seemed impossible, yet the six-armed, evil flower men didn’t seem to care about the implausibility of their existence in the slightest.
He could have at least listened to me for the first hour of questions… Three minutes isn’t enough to learn anything at all!
An alien spoke in a hissing, sucking voice. “I will report her death to the captain.”
Twilight had no idea what kind of alien that was. She had been shown one of the metallic lizards, and that lizard had crushed a solid steel cube in its talons. Apparently their homeworld had three times the standard gravity.
Twilight couldn’t fight one of them off if she wanted toot even with the trickle of mana she could feel flowing back into her body. She was still too far from critical mass to perform a Flashpan Recharge.
I’ve never had to use Flashpan’s technique… I hope I can pull it off first time.
The mystery alien reached up to the side of his helmet with an armored hand and tapped its comm. “Captain, it is Duat. Number five has died. The tank reports she was casting when it happened.”
Duat paused for a moment then nodded. “I’ll ask, sir,” His armor clicked as he turned towards the doctor. “The feedback from the nuralization gel may have fried her brain. How does it look?”
The surgeon tapped on her bioscanner. The device chirped several times as it processed the data. She shrugged. “I don’t know. There's been a lot of random activity, that could mean a psi-induced neural short. Or it could be some part of their anatomy we don’t yet understand.”
“Is there brain activity of any kind?”
“Not anymore. She’s gone.”
The Furlan spoke. Its voice sounded like fingernails on a chalkboard while glass shattered. Not even a translator implant could mask the horrible sound from your perception entirely. “I would enjoy seeing how these primitives taste. May I eat the corpse?”
Twilight almost screamed. WHY DO THEY SOUND LIKE THAT?!
Duat’s eyes narrowed behind his helmet. “Nova Wing is not in the business of eating intelligent lifeforms, Mister Stuph.”
The First Mate turned his attention back to the Captain. “Captain, we are unsure if the corpse is useful or not. We have the data on this subspecies, and I cannot think of many uses for the body. I recommend we dump it.”
Twilight nearly sighed in relief as she learned the terrifying rat-demon-alien wouldn’t eat her with its creepy, digestive enzyme spewing hands. No, stupid! Don’t. Let. Yourself. Do. Anything. The spell will break!
Duat paused for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” the alien turned to his subordinates. “The Captain wishes for the body to be sent out an airlock, then retrieved for study. We do not know if this psion is capable of reanimation, but a bath in cosmic rays will take care of that for us. Mister Stuph, Doctor, I leave the task to you.”
Twilight heard the thud of armored boots striking against the deck. The doors to her room hissed open, then closed. A second passed.
Stuph growled, a sound like broken shards of glass scraping across a chalkboard while fingernails cracked. “Let’s make quick work of it. If we use the aft airlock on deck six, you can launch an escape pod to pull her back in.”
“Is that wise?”
“The other option is we spend half an hour getting suited up for a spacewalk. Come on, you launch the pod, use an emergency grapple to pull the corpse into the pod’s airlock, then I use the tractorbeam to pull the pod back in. It will take five minutes.”
“I’ll still have to fly around the ship to locate the body.”
“Are you new? There’s a bank of escape pods next to that airlock.”
Twilight’s heart beat once. Fortunately, the plant-person surgeon had stopped monitoring her. Escape pods, you say? There’s a planet below us. Perfect!
“I am. I transferred from the Mythic before we set out for the K3,” the doctor replied as she tapped a few commands into the hover-sled so it would follow her. “We won't get in trouble for using the pod, will we?”
Stuph laughed. “Hardly. We use them to retrieve things people have dropped all the time.”
The doctor shrugged her upper two sets of arms. “Okay, but if we do get in trouble, I will tell them this was all your idea.”
Twilight felt the hover-sled jolt as it rose up to horn-height on a unicorn, or waist high on an alien. Her cell doors hissed open, and her captors began to walk to the airlock. The walk was short. Twilight managed to lay still despite everything around her.
A dozen alien conversations nipped at her ears. So many words she did not know, so many concepts which seemed interesting. So many smells she had never smelled before, some good, most bad. If only I wasn’t a prisoner. There is so much to learn here!
The amount of voices Twilight could hear worried her. In her current state, she could handle two pirates, assuming they weren't the lizards. Three? Maybe. Four? Definitely not.
Twilight knew she had one shot at this. If she messed up, she would be shot. Contrary to the pirate’s fears, her magic wouldn’t save her from that.
Twilight did her best to relax and let the ambient magic recharge her diminished strength. Her lungs were sill filled with the psi-dampening gel, which she feared was hindering her attempts to recharge. The magical field felt weak here, and Twilight knew she wouldn’t get much magic at all back from the environment.
If only I’d been given food so I could make my own energy… You’d think they would have given a prisoner food. Wait… Could I have eaten that gel too?
The number of alien voices died down as her guards drew near the airlock. The crew had been ordered to change uniforms—maybe everyone had gone to their quarters to change.
Soon enough, the other voices had stopped altogether, leaving only the sound of two pairs of boots striking the deck and the dull, throbbing wubs of the hover-sled. Her guards walked in silence for several long moments, before the Furlan pointed to the bank of hatches on their left.
“Those are the pods,” Stuph said, as he walked over to one of the hatches and punched in the access code. “You need to program them for hull-flight before launch, or you’ll get fired off into space. Let’s get in this one—”
Twilight needed no further prompting. It was time for the Flashpan Maneuver. The mana she had skimmed form the air went directly into a pulse of raw magic which she directed through her own body. The stench of burning fur filled the corridor as random patches of Twilight’s fur singed. Fat liquified at the magic’s touch, burning away far faster than nature had ever intended.
All of this occured in milliseconds. The pirates’ heads were still turning when Twilight unleashed a massive burst of telekinetic force. The hover-sled cracked in two. Her mask/muzzle shattered. The chains binding her legs behind her exploded into shrapnel. The deck beneath her buckled.
A small miracle prevented Twilight from being blinded by the shrapnel. Her legs and sides were not so lucky, getting peppered with flecks of durasteel. Blood welled up from hundreds of tiny, splintery cuts.
The two pirates went flying, each believing the hover-sled’s power cells had exploded. Stuph’s skull hit a hatch; there was a crunch, a crack, and he slid limply to the deck. The surgeon was flung against the wall equally hard, but without any bones, nor any easily damaged organs, the plant-person stood back up just as Twilight was able to stumble up onto her aching, weary hooves.
Twilight had no idea why she understood that the plant alien’s eyestalks moving closer together was an expression of fear, but she did.
The doctor reached under her cloak for her bolt-pistol with a lower hand, hiding the motion from the unicorn with a subtle twist of her shoulders. “You played dead… Clinically dead. How?”
“Magic,” Twilight answered with a smile, then coughed as a wad of gel worked its way out of her lungs.
The doctor whipped her pistol out from under her cloak. Twilight saw the movement out of the corner her her eye and dropped to the deck as the weapon rang out with a sound like a hammer striking an anvil. Magnetic fields propelled a steel dart at supersonic speeds into the wall behind Twilight. Sparks flew as steel smashed into durasteel and fused to it.
Twilight’s horn shimmered as she cast the first spell to come to mind, and a ray of lavender light lanced out and struck the alien’s weapon. The silver gun twisted, warped, and contorted, tinting orange as it melted into a spherical shape.
The surgeon looked down at her hand, which was now holding an orange. “Fuck this shit, I’m out! I’m done. I’m retiring. I am SO sorry!”
She stood up, raised her vine-like hands to the ceiling, and began to slowly back down the hallway. Twilight put a stun bolt into her chest. The plant-person visibly wilted, her greens and purples fading to gray as she dropped to the deck. Dead.
Thus did Twilight learn an important lesson: that which stuns one species can easily kill another.
Six days ago, Twilight would have felt her heart break in two. She would have rushed to her enemy's side and made sure they were okay. Especially if they were a doctor.
But it was today. That doctor had helped keep her friends alive while cutting them up to examine them muscle fiber by muscle fiber, the first truly, purely evil act she had ever seen. Twilight could not, and would not forget that.
She would get help. They would be saved, or avenged.
Twilight felt confident despite her starved, dehydrated, injured body. She felt far more mana in her system than she had expected to regain form her dangerous trick. It made her feel invincible.
Twilight coughed again, spitting more and more of the gel onto the deck until all that remained was a thin layer coating the inside of each lung. That gel had fuzed to her tissued, and would require a doctor to remove.
Little did she know it, but the psi-blocking gel in her lungs had an unintended side effect when it wasn’t surrounding a captive.
The substance was entirely permeable to oxygen, allowing Twilight to breathe clearly even with parts of her lungs still full of the gel. More importantly, it still pulled ambient mana towards itself. Which in this case, meant more energy moved towards Twilight than away from her.
Nova Wing had unintentionally created the first viable cybernetic modification for psions: a quick-recharge system. A shame it wouldn’t work for anything other than a pony, or any as of yet undiscovered species which had evolved ambient energy absorption.
Twilight ignored the dead doctor and squinted at the escape pod’s hatch controls. The door release was clearly labeled, and within mere seconds Twilight was inside the pod, buckled in and ready to go.
What little she had seen of the ship had been nicely decorated in a way she would call futuristic. This pod was quite the opposite. Her escape craft was small, cramped, and industrial in aesthetic. It felt like something mass produced and disposable, and that’s exactly what it was.
How the pod was supposed to fit someone the size of the average alien without jamming their knees into their chin, she would never know.
The pod’s manual lay open in her lap. Her translator replaced the text on the page with Equish, preserving font choice, layout, and even color. Piloting the pod to the planet below would be a piece of cake.
Twilight smirked as she began to program in a descent path by giving the tiny, way-too-compact-for-hooves controls targeted bursts of telekinesis to operate them. Shouldn’t have given me the ability to read your language, monsters.
Just as Twilight was ready to begin scanning for a safe landing site near the end of her descent path, the ship’s alarms began to go off. Twilight’s ears lay back in panic as she recalled one of her captors mentioning the pods could be pulled back to the ship.
Twilight slammed her hoof down on the launch button, forgoing coding a landing site for the moment. Mag-locks clicked loudly as the pod’s doors sealed shut. The docking clamps hummed and squeaked as they retracted.
The pod was blasted away from the ship with a burst of electromagnetic energy. Twilight was thrown against her seat as the pod was launched into space. Her eyes widened as the pod left the starship’s gravity-field and the book in her lap slowly floated upwards.
Before Twilight could appreciate the uniquely wonderful treat of microgravity, the pod’s q-thruster switched on and slammed her back into the seat as it began to head towards the planet below.
Duat sprinted down the corridor, a blur of chrome, black, and yellow, with a deactivated beam-saber in one hand and a psi-reflecting shield in the other. The Prai soldier had years of experience fighting spellslingers. He could retrieve the unicorn with the least risk to anyone else. Therefore, it was his duty to bring their prize back aboard.
Duat’s comm hissed in his ear. “Mister Duat?”
It was his Captain. Duat turned a corner, moving from the main hallway on deck 5 to the smaller shuttlebay access corridor without losing any speed at all.
“Sir! I am enroute to the shuttlebay. I will be ready to retrieve our prisoner in—”
“Belay that, Mister Duat.”
Duat slid to a stop, his boots screeching on the deck as he went from forty kilometers per hour to zero in mere seconds, the corners of his mouth turned down in disbelief. “Sir?”
“We had her contained in a null-psi tank, and she was able to use her powers. Security footage shows she transmuted a crewman’s sidearm into fruit. As in, the weapon is now edible food. We do not have the capability to contain her. Let her go.”
Duat’s frown deepened. “A fair argument, sir, but shouldn’t we at least detonate her pod? I can launch a fighter instead of a shuttle.”
“There’s no need, Mister Duat. Have you forgotten she is escaping in our escape pod?”
The first mate’s lips pulled up into a smile. “Ah! My apologies, sir. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I was focused on ending the danger to the Elusive in the ways I am experienced in, sir.”
“Indeed. I’ve set the pod to reenter uncontrolled, crash through some old buildings, and fail to deploy parachutes. The pod’s controls have been remotely locked. She has no way to safely land. If the impact doesn't kill her, her injuries will. If she somehow survives that, she’s stranded on a barren planet, and we will be parsecs away within the week. I’ve cancelled the alert, Mister Duat. Please continue overseeing the transition to cruise mode.”
“Yes, sir.” Duat let go of his comm’s transmission button and turned to look out one of the ship’s windows.
He was on the port side. If he tried, he could likely catch a glimpse of the doomed mare’s pod. It would bring him comfort to know such a powerful enemy would soon die.
Rainbow Dash - 13th of Faust, 1st year of Harmony
749,559.51 A.H.
Dawn of Destiny, Tavros Station - Fenx System, Noctae Sector
Pan, Rainbow, and Penny sat on the Dawn’s bridge. The bridge had deployed a holo-curtain over the bridge’s windows for safety during the jump. Pan had asked if they could get rid of it. The answer was a laugh, followed by a very firm no. The time displacement made studying why impossible, but anyone who saw the universe when traveling faster than light went irrevocably mad.
Not even a fun kind of mad. The sad, pathetic, vegetable-who-occasionally-screams-for-no-discernible-reason mad.
Rainbow had just enough time to wonder why you would even have windows on a ship, in that case, before the Dawn hit FTL.
The Dawn lurched as she came out of FTL, her engines whining loudly enough to be heard up on the bridge as they began their deceleration work. Her hull was rocked by a brief but violent shudder which was immediately forgotten by everypony aboard as the holo curtain faded away to reveal Tavros Station.
Tavros hung in the air over a water world. The entire planet was a single salty ocean, one of the exceedingly rare worlds to be exclusively land or sea. The planet was a fascinating place to visit, if you were able to live beneath the sea. Amphibious and aquatic races all agreed the many biomes and ecosystems were a natural wonder.
Which is why the fuel-processing industries, deuterium harvesting, and refining angered so many people in the Arm. Despite their protests, fuel for the fusion reactors used in the fringe worlds had to come from somewhere, and there was no location in the fringe which could offer a cheap price to most developing systems. So the harvesting continued.
Tavros station existed for the sake of the people who worked for the fuel industry first and foremost. It was a full space habitat, specifically a Bernal sphere with a diameter of 30 kilometers. The station’s living area filled the inside of the sphere, and over 80,000 people made their home on Tavros. No station can survive with only residential zones, and so Tavros also had rings.
Three rings, to be precise. The first ring was built 400 meters away from the sphere’s equator, and ran along it. This was the commercial district, filled with shops, businesses, and government offices.
Perpendicular to that ring, and five hundred meters away, was the agricultural ring. A single, massive hydroponics facility which grew not only the station’s food, but enough food to export to the local fringe worlds.
The final ring, the industrial ring, was a full kilometer out form the agricultural ring, and orbited around Tavros’s equator. It was primarily a shipyard, but also served as a dock, shipping department, and refueling station.
The orbiting rings and their transparent connecting space bridges made the station look like a gyroscope as it slowly rotated along its axis.
Just as Rainbow’s jaw dropped at the awe-inspiring megastructure before her eyes, she noticed the thousands of starships, big and small, flying to and from the rings on countless different missions. There were cargo ships, personal transports, construction vessels, survey ships, automated-mining rigs offloading ore, and even a few Star League warships flying around the station.
It reminded Rainbow of the bees around a beehive, if each bee was completely different from every other bee, and in fact might not actually be a bee, but some other form of small flying insect.
“Woah!” The ponies said in unison.
Penny frowned. “What? That? It’s just a run down—” Penny stopped mid sentence as her brain ordered her to backpedal hardcore. “I mean, I am glad I can be here to see you see your first habitat.”
Rainbow didn’t let Penny bother her. She was too absorbed in watching the warships move. There were four of them, and the way their massive gun turrets ran on gear-like rings around their hull so any given turret could be moved to any point in its rotation around the top, sides, and bottom of the vessel was something she could watch for hours.
The ships were testing their turret translocation systems in preparation for a patrol of the fringe worlds. It made for a truly fascinating show to watch each gun cycle through each possible firing position at random. The largest ship had a row of 32 turrets along its hull, making the cigar-shaped ship look like an ever-changing hedgehog who had to threaten an entire army with its quills.
Rainbow was so fascinated by the ship’s display she missed Penny call for, wait for, and then recieve landing clearance, a A process which took ten minutes.
Rainbow only barely heard Penny say, “Okay, we’re landing in 3-I, remember that, Pan,” before her attention was diverted by the Dawn’s thrusters kicking in.
She’d gotten to watch a spaceship fly when the ill-fated Hoatzin took off, but the trip to the moon had been rather dull after the first ten minutes. Just a long flight through a black void in a tiny ship. But here?
The Dawn’s large arrowhead hull nimbly wove between rows of moving ships. Up, down, left, right. It was like flying through treetops. Only the trees were moving, and hitting one would mean certain death.
Rainbow’s heart beat rapidly in her chest. A grin spread across her face. As the sixth cargo ship slid across the bridge’s viewport, she knew what she needed to do with her life: she needed to become a star pilot.
Pan was fascinated by the view, as well. The young stallion’s eyes were fixed on the station, his mind moving through every possibility for what would lie within. A whole alien world, no nature at all, a place built for people of all sorts by all sorts of people. It must be a paradise.
Penny flew towards their hanger bay with a bored detachment. Parking was the worst part of flying. The trip to the hanger was always boring, and the actual docking was always stressful.
As the Dawn slipped through the gaping octagonal hole in the outer ring, passing directly beneath alien numerals labeling the city-sized hanger as 3-I, Penny’s bored expression changed to a distressed one. Her eyes flicked across every ship in the bay before they drew even remotely near the other vessels.
Despite the obvious, bright yellow flashing drones which flew alongside the Dawn to escort the fuel tanker into the bay, well… Some pilots were just plain stupid.
Others, Penny knew a little too well.
Penny’s eyes narrowed as she saw a small red and white ship docked near the Dawn’s landing pad entrance. It was a Mina ship, a simple saucer with a nice paint job and a glittering, hematite-plated hull. The sort of ship which you could find everywhere.
With just one unique feature: the saucer was warped to make the ship ever so slightly vagina shaped. A Mina’s vagina, to be specific. The oval shape and ridges were very subtle, to the point where anyone not intimately familiar with an unmodified Mina would never see the lewd joke. As far as Penny knew, that was her and maybe eighty dozen other people.
A flame of rage welled up within her heart. Memories flooded her mind, a million “I love yous”, and a dozen other people. “Cyka blyat!”
Pan frowned and turned to look at the chernin woman. “What’s wrong?”
“That’s a Casstech Z14… I need to check the docking registry,” Penny’s fingers flew across her controls for several long seconds, only for her eyes to narrow as she pulled up the data she was looking for. “Da, eto korabl' vlagalishcha!”
Rainbow raised an eyebrow as curiosity got the better of her. “How come our translators don't translate everything you say? Is it just, like, untranslatable?”
“Nyet. The Chernin translation is programmed to drop certain words for cultural reasons. Also, they like to censor our swearing…” Penny growled as she lay back in her seat with a look of extreme upset on her face.
Rainbow counted to three. Her desire to ask the obvious question didn’t go away. She sighed. “Okay, and they like to censor your cursing, why? Is that even legal?”
“It’s a government. It can make anything it likes legal or illegal,” Penny griped. “There’s a saying. ‘If you learn to swear in Chernin, you know half the language.’ It’s not wrong.”
Penny’s eyes narrowed as she took another look at the ship. “But THAT is wrong!”
“What’s wrong, hon?” Pan asked with a worried frown.
“That’s my ex’s ship. I hoped for a minute she sold it, but she hasn’t,” the woman grumbled darkly.
Pan winced and trotted up to Penny to give her a loving hug. “Oh, okay, yeah. I get that… But I thought you liked that squiddy-girl.”
Rainbow nodded in agreement. “Yeah, you’ve only said nice things about her.”
“She wasn’t ever my ex,” Penny said as she flipped the switch to set the Dawn to auto-land. “I outlived her. I’m her widow. That, is my ex’s ship. She’s still alive. Obviously. Different person. Different, cheating, never mentioning being polyamorous, or already having eight other relationships, person!”
Pan’s ears entered the classic full-droop of a stallion who needed an immediate out from this conversation. He had never wished he could teleport more than he did as Penny stomped across the bridge.
Rainbow zipped over to Penny, entering full damage control mode. She reared up and set her hooves on Penny’s shoulders. “Hey, it’s okay. This station is huge! Odds are great you won't even see her. We can just go, do our thing, then leave.”
Penny closed her eyes tightly and gave Rainbow a hug. Rainbow blushed lightly as she felt Penny’s breasts squished against her barrel.
Oh! That’s why Pan keeps giving her hugs. Heh! Let’s never let Penny know this feels nice...
Penny let go of Rainbow and sighed. “Nyet… Steele’s family sells ships. She… still wants me. She'll give me a good price on a new shuttle. I need to talk to her. Otherwise I’m wasting credits.”
Rainbow nodded once and dropped back down to all fours. “Okay, well, in that case, Pan and I will stay clear of her, right Pan?”
Pan nodded as if his life depended on it. “So clear! All of the clear.”
Rainbow smiled. “See? Just tell us what she looks like, and we won't go anywhere near her.”
Penny coughed into her fist and looked awkwardly up at the ceiling. “I uh, I can’t.”
Pan and Rainbow shared a look. Rainbow nodded to Pan, pleading with him to ask instead of her.
Pan cleared his throat and trotted forwards. “So uh, why not? You guys were a thing, so like… How can you not know?”
Penny offered Pan a shaky smile. “Mina tend to… They like to change their bodies. A lot. They are the inventors of most transformatives. It’s rare to see a Mina in the same body they had two months ago. It is fashion to them. I haven't seen her in eighty-three standard months.
“I have no idea what she looks like right now. I don’t even know if she is a she right now… I don’t want to call her with you two around. Trust me, the first thing she does when meeting new aliens is try to bed you. Which um… I sometimes do that, too. But NOT while I am in a relationship! A promise is a promise.”
Rainbow winced and gave Penny a quick nod to let the woman know she understood. “Okay, so she’s some kind of predator? I’m sorry you have to deal with that.”
Pan took it upon himself to give Penny another hug. “Me too… So uh, I guess you’ll deal with that while we are at the doctor’s? Is it okay to leave us alone on a station that big?” Pan pointed out the window with a hoof.
Rainbow blinked. “Good point! How will this work?”
Penny walked over to a storage compartment on the bridge and opened it. She removed two small silver pins shaped like the Dawn’s silhouette as seen from above. She took the pins over to Pan and Rainbow and gently pressed them against their barrels, just over the heart.
Nanoglue on the back of the pins imeadiently adhered them to the ponies’ fur.
“Commbadges. Modeled after an idea from old First Race show. It’s a good idea; we made them better. These are entire personal comms. Keep them. Tap them twice and you’ll get a holoscreen. Touch the big green circle and say my name, it will call me.”
Pan looked at the pin and frowned. He looked up at Penny with a curious tilt to his head. “Why didn’t you give us these when we woke up? They seem important.”
Penny gestured to the compartment. “They are for guests. I’ll buy you good comms at the mall later. Those only have the basic features.”
“Oh.”
Rainbow experimentally tapped the badge twice. A rectangular, curved hologram immediately formed a screen in front of her. The display had several buttons, but the green one was obvious and held the center position. “Okay, cool. How do I close it?
“Tap it again.”
Rainbow tapped the badge and the screen vanished. “Cool!”
Penny gestured for the ponies to follow her and began to leave the bridge. “You two will be unconscious at the doctor’s for at least two hours. I’ll try to be back before then.”
Pan and Rainbow shared a nervous wince.
“Why that long?” Pan asked with a sidelong glance at Rainbow.
“You need full service. They put you under for that.”
Rainbow hummed and nervously shuffled her hooves. “So full service means, what?”
Penny took a deep breath as she realized she would need to explain literally everything to her new friends. “Everything. Every procedure needed to get you into optimal health. Teeth? Cleaned and repaired. Arteries? Unblocked. Age damage to neurons? Repaired. Injuries? Treated. Conditions? Removed or managed. STDs? Removed. Everything. It’s full service, blin.”
Rainbow triple blinked. “Wait, like, HOW?!”
Penny turned and flashed Rainbow the biggest grin she could. “How? With science of course!”
Rainbow had no option but to accept that answer.
Pan frowned. “That sounds expensive. I thought money was tight?”
Penny nodded. “Da, it is, but medical care is free for the basics. You were hurt on my ship. My insurance covers you. I also have a small emergency fund for medical care, but I don’t think we’ll need to dip into it, comrades.”
With that settled, everypony got ready to disembark. The process was weirder than Rainbow thought it would be.
Despite the Iregsin being nudists, most worlds had modesty laws. Iregsin had special exceptions to those laws thanks to their species owning the majority of the Orion Arm’s major manufacturing systems. Other species who did not have such legal clout had to dress.
Pan was delighted for the excuse to wear something cute. He went with an outfit consisting of his favorite hoodie, some black leather socks for his rear-legs, and short white shorts which Rainbow thought might have once been pants.
To Rainbow’s annoyance, the only clothing which would fit on a pony were Pan’s. Pan gave her a purple hoodie of his which he had loaned a pegasus he once dated. She’d cut slits into it, which let Rainbow’s wings remain free.
If that’s all she had to wear, Rainbow would have been fine with it. The law was however, very clear. All individuals must wear a garment or garments which covered their torsos and groins. Rainbow was very unhappy to have to go out into public while wearing a stallions’ swimsuit which she swore was a design for mares given a bit of extra room in the front. Especially one which was the pink you get when you wash something white with something red.
Fortunately, her embarrassment had been forgotten when Penny stomped into the cargo bay in her T-34.
Rainbow’s eyes widened at the sight of the Chernin woman in full battle armor. “Uhhhh… D— Are— Um—”
Penny frowned for a moment then giggled. “Oh! I forgot to tell you. Chernin are not allowed to enter other species habitats without an enviro-suit or other containment suit. This is all I have.”
Pan frowned. “Why? Diseases?”
Rainbow’s ears perked up. Her eyes widened as terror flooded her guts. “Oh buck! I didn’t even think about alien diseases! That’s like, a huge staple of sci-fi! The aliens dying because they can’t handle the flu or whatever.”
Penny shook her head and held up a hand. “Nyet! Don’t worry about disease. Unless there’s a plague, you won't catch anything from an alien without having sex with them. There’s little microbes native to every planet. First Race bio-tech. It’s like an immune system that specifically targets alien microbes. Each strain evolved with your species, so it’s harmless and—”
Rainbow’s mind linked the concept to something she vaguely remembered when she had been not sleeping in highschool, and gasped. “Oh my Luna! Is THAT what those are for?”
Pan looked over at Rainbow. “Is that, what, huh?”
Rainbow looked at Pan like he was an idiot. “Didn’t you pay any attention in high school biology? There’s that little flu-looking thing that literally every species on Equus has in it, but it doesn't seem to do anything for us.”
“Da! That’s it,” Penny said as she walked out the cargo bay door. “The amicitiae bacterium aka The Bonds of Friendship. Without them, we couldn’t interact with each other.”
Pan hummed. “So, that super powerful species that came before everyone made sure everyone after them could hang out with each other?”
“Da!”
Pan nodded sagely. He had in fact napped through high school biology. “You could make a religion out of that.”
Penny sighed and shook her head. “They did. Several. Come, the less money I spend on a ship, the more I can spend on you two. We’ll be looking a long time.. You’ll need things. Clothing, tools, entertainment especially.”
“Okay,” Rainbow siad slowly. “But why do you need a containment suit?”
Penny’s cheeks flushed. “Uh, well… We’re not legally allowed to use their bathrooms… Because of our diets and regenerative abilities our waste is, uh… very hazardous.”
“Oh… ew.” Pan said in unison with Rainbow.
With that, the trio disembarked the Dawn, entering directly into a habitat shuttle. The shuttle ride took them through the industrial ring, down the space bridge, through a segment of the agricultural ring, and through the second bridge to the commercial ring. Their flight lasted for nearly half an hour and was ungodly boring.
Tavros Station hadn’t been built for tourists. The shuttle’s route was essentially a huge, hollow steel tunnel. The shuttle route prevented anyone from seeing into the rings they passed through. Only the short trips through the clear space bridges provided a break from an endless series of big, gray steel panels.
The commercial ring, on the other hoof, was breathtaking. The ring was completely hollow and filled with a huge city that reminded Rainbow of Fillydelphia, only so huge it stretched out as far as the eye could see. Soaring towers of multi-colored glass were separated by small parks, short plastic buildings, and busy streets.
The city below, alone, would have been a wonder in and of itself, but it shared space with something far more interesting. The city was divided into sections via large lakes. The sea like lakes were big enough to have small waves, and the warm light of the special tuned lamps caused enough evaporation for clouds to form over the city.
In the distance, Rainbow could see rain falling over a far-off section of the ring. Her arcane senses immediately fell in tune with the weather. It was real, not stage magic. The winds, the thermals, the rain, the slight electric charge in the air…
Tavros felt as alive as Equestria. Rainbow longed to get out of the shuttle and walk around on some nice, fluffy clouds.
“I’m going to have to fly later. This place feels great!”
Penny smiled. “We’ll let you get in a good one before we leave. It could be a month or more till we land again.”
Rainbow immediately penciled in at least three hours of relaxing flight.
The shuttle emerged out of the ring’s cloud layer, giving everyone a much better view of the technicolor wonderland below them. Rainbow gasped and laughed as shuttles whizzed past them. The machinery on display everywhere was a novelty she found herself enjoying more and more with each passing second.
Pan’s ears drooped as he hung his head in disappointment. “Awww… It’s just like how we would make a city.”
Penny snorted. “No it's not? I saw one of your cities. It was all gold and solar flares.”
Pan giggled. “That’s just Canterlot. Most of our buildings are not dipped in gold. They are all colorful though, and we don't do just one kind of building. Honestly, it looks like ponies made this.”
Rainbow hummed and looked down then shook her head. “No way. Not enough parks, and all of the parks are too small. We use way more green places.”
“I think you’ll like it on the ground, Pan,” Penny said as she leaned up to speak to the AI pilot. “Land us at the nearest doctor’s who accepts Cosmic Care.”
“Right away, ma’am,” the AI replied in a sexless voice.
The shuttle turned and headed spinwards before stopping dead in the air and moving straight down. Before Rainbow knew, it the shuttle had touched down and the doors hissed open. The landing had been so smooth she hadn’t felt any deceleration.
“I hope you leave the doctor’s satisfied, girls,” the AI said as everyone disembarked.
Pan blinked and glared at the AI. “I’m a guy!”
The AI ran another check and came to the same conclusion it had before. It debated informing the delusional person that they were in fact, not. However, it deemed politeness to be the better part of valor. “My apologies, sir. Have a nice day.”
The shuttle’s doors closed as Penny stepped out, and the AI switched on holo-displays advertising its rates.
Pan and Penny looked around the alien street, while Penny took a moment to start the paperwork for her insurance in advance.
Both ponies were blown away. They had been used to seeing different kinds of ponies everywhere in Equestria, but the other species sharing their world tended to keep to their own nations. Tavros wasn’t like that. Tavros was a melting pot.
Everywhere you looked, another new race jumped out at you. There were a few other Chernin, some Iregsin, and dozens of species Rainbow couldn’t recognize. There were six armed plant people. A bunch of people who looked like Chernin, only they were bald, purple, and had pointed ears. There were a bunch of really tall, skinny, bipedal aliens who came in tans and greens which looked like alien frogs, only with lizard tails and shark-eyes.
There were tentacled creatures. Short, furry bipeds. There was a thing Rainbow couldn’t even describe other than as ‘a centaur, only instead of front legs, it has extra long arms connected to its upper torso that it walks on like front legs, also it has back tentacles.
Pan excitedly looked around, a bright smile on his face. “I take it back. This is NOTHING like a pony city!”
The young stallion was in heaven. Everyone was so different. He knew there had to be a place for him.
Rainbow was in a special kind of hell. Everywhere she looked, she saw something cute or beautiful. Not in Tavros’ buildings or landscape, but in its people.
The warm, smooth, green ‘skin’ of the K'Rixon (plant-people). The cute, pointy ears of the Iregsin passing by. The fluid way Legri moved when they walked. The light blue glow of Praian eyes.
Rainbow looked around doing her best to hide her blush from everypony. AAAAA! WHY IS EVERYTHING ATTRACTIVE?! THAT CENTAUR THING SHOULD NOT MAKE ME WANT TO FLIRT WITH IT! HELP!!!
Rainbow’s panic was smashed aside as something female squeed and sprinted towards her at the speed of glomp.
“STARS ABOVE! YOU ARE THE CUTEST THING, EVER!”
Pan and Penny winced, their ears dropping flat to block out the high pitched sound. Rainbow wanted to scream and fly away: her pegasus hearing couldn’t handle the ultrasonic component of the screech.
Just as her wings opened to take off, a short Iregsin with bright, iris colored skin wearing only a silk belt with many large pouches rushed up to Rainbow and gently scratched her behind the ears.
Rainbow’s eyes shrank to pinpricks. She wheeled around and glared up into the young alien’s face. She seemed bubbly, nice, and reminded Rainbow a little bit of Pinkie, which is what saved the woman from a light slap. “Hey! It’s NOT okay to pet people! Who taught you manners?!”
The alien woman eeped. Her long ears flicked up in the most adorable expression of embarrassment Rainbow had ever seen. And she had seen Twilight go full scrunchface.
“I’m so sorry! I thought you were someone's pets.” She dropped to her knees and offered Rainbow a humble bow. “My sincere apologies!”
Rainbow took a step back, not sure how to reply to such a sincere apology. “Uh, it’s okay? It felt nice.”
The Iregsin woman moved back to her knees, remaining in a kneeling position to be more on Rainbow’s eye level. “I have never seen your people before, and I am big into ODINet culture. So, um, uh, I may have just blown a first contact between our peoples. I am very, VERY sorry and would love it if I could help you with something so as to leave a better first impression.”
Rainbow frowned, compelled by the power of quad-bambi eyes to be extra nice. “Oh, uh—”
Penny crossed the distance from the shuttle to Rainbow and the Iregsin in one loud powered step. “Ey! Are you harassing my friends?”
The alien woman looked to the left. Then up, and up. Rainbow smirked, expecting her to make a hasty and apologetic exist. Instead, her lower pair of eyes widened.
ODINet celebrities were fairly common. In fact, they were quite abundant thanks to the size of the galactic population. Meeting one in person where you lived, whom you also followed, was unheard of.
Iregsin’s tongues are prehensile, and quite long. The poor alien woman’s tongue proceed to tie itself into a knot. Literally. “U— U— Um— H— Hi! C— Can—”
Penny squatted down, smiled at her fan, and extended a pen from the tip of her armor’s right index finger. “Of course. What do you want signed?”
The alien woman reached into one of her pouches and took out a small datapad. With a few swift taps of her fingers she pulled up a video clip of Penny. To Rainbow’s shock, terror, and fassenation it depicted her friend in her armor having a fistfight with what appeared to be a robo-bear and a cyber-gorilla.
Woah! I think I need armor if I’m going to be bringing her stuff.
“This, please!”
“What’s your name?”
“Saria.”
“Net name?”
Saria blushed a bright blue. “I Uh, it’s… It’s stupidsexydolphin…”
Rainbow bit her lip. Don’t say her username is apt, don’t say her username is apt, don’t say—
“Looks like you picked the right name,” Rainbow said with a wink.
Rainbow mentally kicked herself. Not like that! Bad brain!
Saria blush brightened even more. “T— thanks!”
Penny giggled and beamed Saria a smile. “I remember you! You won a video chat last year.”
Penny reached out and signed her name on the lower right corner of the projection. The signature stayed behind on the screen even though she drew on it with a normal pen. The captured signature would forever glow on the video in bright pink. “There you go. If you don’t mind, my friends need a doctor and I need to find a new shuttle.”
Saria gasped. “What happened to the Hoatzin?! Did I miss a stream?”
Penny shook her head. “Nyet. This is the special project. You can’t film in the K3. There will be a public stream soon. Long story short, Nova Wing was also picking up ponis. Against their will.”
All four of Saria’s eyes widened. “You got away from Nova? Wow! I um…”
A mini fantasy of leaving the streets of Taveros and becoming a space hero like her hero briefly flashed within her eyes. Then she remembered how much it cost to own and operate a proper starship, and the dream shot itself. As it had every other time she’d dreamed it up.
The starstruck alien took a moment to catch her breath. “I made a very bad first impression with your friend, Miss Hawking. I would very much like to repay that dishonor. I have lived here for six years, and can show you around after the doctor’s appointment. I can wait here for you, if you would enjoy a guide.”
Penny hummed and waved Pan over. “Comrades, I may be talking with… Her for some time. I know Saria is trustworthy because none of the footage from our call has made it onto the net. She could have made a good deal selling it, if you catch my drift. I think it would be best if you agreed to let her accompany you so you have a guide incase I can’t get back in time. At the very least, she can help you get back to the Dawn.”
Pan smiled. “Sure! Why not. I mean, you trust her and know her as a fan.”
Rainbow thought for a few moments then nodded. “I would be happy to let you show me around your home, Saria. This place is awesome!”
Saria smiled to try and hide her embarrassed ear-wiggle at the mention of her home. She pointed to a nearby bench. “I’ll be right here! Don’t worry, I’ll duck into the net. Just tap me on the shoulder when you’re back, and I’ll logoff.”
Penny smiled. “Thank you.” A small compartment in the left thigh of her armor popped open. Penny reached in and fished out a small bag of sunflower seeds and handed them to Saria with a smile. “Have some semechki while you wait.”
Saria’s lower eyes widened. “Really?! Thanks!” She took the bag and skipped over to the bench to munch on what was a very rare snack for her people.
Penny stood up, only to find both ponies looking up at her in complete confusion. “What?”
Pan pointed to her armor’s pocket, conce again closed. “Why the heck does your armor have a pocket for sunflower seeds?”
Penny tilted her head to the left. “Semechki pouch is standard feature on all Chernin armors. This is a T-34, so I have three. Come, let’s not keep our new comrade waiting.”
The ponies followed Penny across the expansive, plaza-like sidewalk to the small building directly across from where the shuttle had landed. The building was bright white, and featured a red alien sigil on it. It reminded Rainbow of the letter L, but with a little dash across the middle.
Rainbow immediately memorized the symbol, assuming correctly that it was the galactic sign for a hospital or medical supplies. As they entered through the large glass doors, Rainbow found herself more than a little confused.
Rather than a waiting room like she thought she would find, the front room was lined with row upon row of pods large enough for a person to lay down in. There was an island counter in the middle of the room, behind which sat one of those extra tall lizard-frog aliens who wore a white tunic with the medical symbol embroidered on it.
The Legri doctor looked up at the sound of a walking tank barging through his front door and groaned. “Chernin have to use the office on 189th avenue. We are not equipped to handle the toxic elements found in your body.”
Penny held up her hands. “Nyet, doctor. We’re here for my friends, not me. They need full service care. I am sending you my insurance information now.”
The doctor glanced down at the holoscreen on his counter. An alert chimed as it informed him that a Rainbow Dash and Pandora were due for full care and were cleared for up to twenty-thousand credits of service.
“In that case, let’s get started…” The doctor stood up and walked out from behind the counter, moving over to Rainbow and Pan with a silver device held in his left hand.
He tapped a button on the device and swept it over them. “Near-humans? Odd. You don't see very many near-humans who are not bipeds.”
Pan cleared his throat. “What is a near-human, exactly?”
“A large group of lifeforms with a genetic link to the First Race, or humans as they called themselves,” the doctor explained as he scrolled through his medical files. “Ah, there we are. You’re lucky, our system was updated with your species biology a mere six hours ago. We wouldn’t have been able to treat you.”
Rainbow’s eyes narrowed. “Where did you get that data?”
The doctor frowned, noticing her tone and expression. “Is there a problem?”
Penny nodded. “Da, the only others of their race to leave their homeworld were taken by pirates. I’m helping them file a report with the Star League, but we ran into a shuttle accident. They need medical care first.”
The doctor tapped some more commands on his pad. “Mmm, the data was sold to the medical community by the captain of the VOC Meermin. It says here he purchased it from a Mina who was selling bio-data in bulk. I hope that helps you.”
The three nodded as one. “Oh, it does!” Rainbow said with a wicked smile.
We have a lead. Won’t be long now, jerks!
Penny smiled, deciding that she should go to her bank and shift some funds around. It looked like Rainbow might need some proper equipment sooner than she thought. “I have business to attend to. I must leave them in your care, doctor. There is an Iregsin named Saria waiting outside. If I am not back in two hours, they may be discharged to her, if they can’t leave on their own. She is our guide.”
The doctor nodded. “Of course,” he turned his attention to the ponies and used his neural interface to open two of the capsules lining the rooms. “If you two will step inside, our auto-docs should be able to clear everything up for you just fine. If anything can’t be treated by them, I’ll attend to you personally. Don’t worry, I monitor their operations closely. It’s perfectly safe.”
Penny turned and left the office while the doctor spoke.
Pan pursed his lips then nodded. “Robot doctors. Cool! Can it fix a broken horn?”
The doctor paused. “I don’t know. I could certainly make a prosthetic for you, but cosmetic work must come after a full service checkup.”
Rainbow blinked. “Wait, even though a unicorn’s horn is like, their actual means of spellcasting and an important body part?!”
The doctor’s eyes widened. “I’m sorry! In most species, a horn is a cosmetic feature. I take it yours do not regrow?”
Pan shook his head. “Nah, I wouldn’t be that lucky.”
The doctor nodded and tapped at his pad. “There. I’ve instructed the auto-doc to take a look. Please take the one on the right, sir. Ma’am, take the one on the left. Unless you want it to try and fix a horn you do not have.”
Rainbow gulped nervously. “O—okay…”
She stepped forwards and entered the capsule on the left, easily able to climb on the bed and walk along it to the end of the capsule, thanks to it being built for larger people. The moment she laid down on the bed, the door gently hissed shut behind her. Rainbow eeped slightly, worrying about being trapped in such a small space.
The capsule’s AI detected the patients stress levels and responded accordingly by choosing the most soothing voice it had on file and deciding to speak professionally.
“Please state the nature of the medical emergency.”
Rainbow bit her lip and looked around for anything to look at while speaking. None were available.
“I uh… I was in a Lada-class shuttle, and it got blown up. So I was in space without a suit. Then a Chernin mechanic gave me first aid.”
The auto-doc paused for a full second as it tried to process how to respond to the poor mare. A small hatch opened up into of Rainbow and deployed a small tray. A small arm descended from a hidden recess in the pod’s ceiling and set a glass of amber liquid on the tray. “It is my medical opinion that you need some of this before we continue.”
Rainbow frowned and sniffed at the liquid. “Is this whisky?”
“Yes.”
Rainbow flinched and gently picked up the glass and put it back into the robot arm’s graspers. “No thanks... I um… I also tried Chernin vodka.”
The auto-doc paused again, this time to sigh. “I see. Well, let’s start by regenerating your liver.”
Twilight Sparkle - 13th of Faust, 1st year of Harmony
749,559.62 A.H.
Gilbi Ruins, Tustea -- Ithaa-Phea System, Noctae Sector
Twilight moaned and squirmed in the mangled remains of the escape pod. She couldn’t be certain, but she swore she had plowed through the crumbling remains of a palace on the way down. There had been too much screaming, vomiting, and spinning for her to be certain of anything.
Anything other than that she was bleeding, covered in sick, her rear-left leg was broken, and she was alive.
Twilight clenched her teeth to ignore the pain from her leg and twisted around to see about getting the pod’s hatch open. It took her a good minute, but her probing hooves at last found the manual release and with substantial effort ratcheted the hatch open.
It wasn’t until cool air flooded the interior of the pod that Twilight realized she might have just let poison into her only source of breathable air. She spent several moments beating herself up over her mistake while waiting to die.
Death didn’t come. Not because Tustea’s air was safe for a pony, but because the gel in her lungs filtered the air for her. It even stored a little air for her. The lavender mare had gained what amounted to an internal life support system.
If the psi-gel worked for the average alien like it did for unicorns, Nova Wing could have made a killing as a legitimate business.
Unaware of her unintentional gift, Twilight slowly crawled out of the ruined escape pod. The mare was laying in the middle of an ash-filled wasteland. The remains of buildings great and small spread across what little of the hills she could see around her through the dense fog.
A few young plants poked through the rubble. Ancient seeds having at last been able to germinate as the arcane toxins had leached out of the soil at long last. Perhaps in a few thousand years, Tustea would once again be a green world. For now, it looked as if one pony could manage to survive on the sparse greens growing over several acres of land.
Twilight whimpered as an especially sharp twinge of pain ate through her leg. She reached back with her magic and gently pulled the mangled limb out of the pod, smearing blood along the once smooth metal as she finally slipped entirely free.
The smell of blood entered Tustea’s thick atmosphere and spread almost as quickly as it would have in water.
Twilight gulped nervously as she took in the apocalyptic surroundings. She raised a hoof to shield her eyes from the intense light of the setting suns and tried to scan the horizon for any sign of movement. Please just be a warzone… An inactive warzone…
Sharks can smell a bleeding creature of a pony’s size from almost a kilometer away.
Twilight’s eyes narrowed against the bright light as she swore she saw something move just over the ridge of the furthest hill she could see. She leaned towards it, wishing she felt in good enough shape to cast a magnification spell.
Water, especially salt water, is not a good fluid for spreading scents over a large area. Air is much better at dispersing smells. Especially in terms of speed.
The fur on the back of Twilight’s neck stood up. She could feel it. Deep, deep down in her guts. She was being watched.
If sharks live on land they would be able to smell a given amount of blood from tens of kilometers away.
Twilight scrambled onto the three good hooves and turned around. Her mangled pod was the only shelter she knew of. The steel was twisted, the hull was cracked, but just maybe it had enough integrity to keep out a predator.
A trio of black, gelatinous, shark-like alien eyes watched the unicorn stand from behind a pile of charred logs which had once been the support beams for a princess’s bedroom. Three eyes saw Twilight slowly turn around. One mind observed the new creature in its territory. A great hunger welled up deep within, instinct issued a command, and thousands of bodies began to converge on the old ruins.
Twilight’s injured leg slammed into the side of the ruined pod. She screamed in pain. The creature watching her burst form its concealment. Stone, ash, and wood scraped and clattered as the massive creature pounced.
Twilight’s eyes widened in horror, her head whipped around, she saw it, and froze.
It was a giant. The creature was something between a mammal and a reptile. The black-skinned giant had three large eyes, two where you’d expect, with a third set above them in a triangle formation. It ran on four legs, but it’s front limbs, talons, and thick saurian tail suggested it was a theropod, and had merely been crawling a moment before. Its four six-fingered talons ended in massive claws, each one as long as Twilight’s leg from knee to hoof.
The thing’s salamander-like skin glistened in the light of the suns. Twilight wasn’t sure if it was sweating, covered in mucus, or just glossy. She was too terrified that the two large globular things on the monster’s chest were pouches to carry its young in.
But the mouth is what caused Twilight to go limp with terror. The monster’s head was large, round, and at the end of a long, flexible neck, like a dragon’s. It’s mouth was small, but able to stretch wide enough to swallow Twilight whole. Not that it would. The smile on its face showed three rows of shark-like fangs.
The monster landed and raced towards Twilight at top speed, driven by one of the most primal instincts. It would get the pony. It needed the pony.
Twilight took in its black skin, mistaking the stripes running along its spine for blood. Teror shot down her spine and gave her the energy to run. Twilight twisted, pushed against the ground, and made it three steps before her broken leg remembered it was broken in six places and she collapsed, falling face first into the ash.
The suns were blotted out as the monster loomed over her. Twilight screamed in terror as taloned hands curled around her torso with surprising speed and gentleness, though one talon did slice into her ribs.
The gestalt intelligence born of the genocide five hundred years ago took full control of the drone which had caught the pony. It reared up, and held the thing out at arms length, craning its neck around to examine it before hugging Twilight to its chest. The lavender unicorn immediately vanished into the cleavage of what she now realised were teats the size of her entire body.
Twilight screamed in terror. I’m going to be eaten by a giant salamander somepony fuzed with Lyra’s drawings and a utahraptor!
The “monster” made a sound, something low, rumbly, but happy sounding. Just as Twilight was about to panic, her translator found the alien language in the archived files, and quickly provided her with a translation.
“Yay! Social activity!”
Twilight blinked. “Wait, what?”
The six meter tall alien held Twilight out at arm’s length again. “Hello, sky-person! We friends, please?”
Terror left Twilight like air escaping a balloon. Twilight looked her ‘captor’ up and down once. Now that she wasn’t afraid of being eaten, the huge alien mare actually looked kinda cute. More importantly, the obvious carnivore wanted to be friends.
Twilight nodded fervently. “Yes! Please! That is amazingly preferable to being eaten!”
The alien smiled, and so did the two billion drones that made up her hive. “Yay! No worry. I know you words. Brain-magic-good! Um… No, that sounds bad? I no talk with words, ever! Only mind on world. Everyone is me. Lonely… But no lonely now!”
The drone holding Twilight set her on its left shoulder. Twilight did her best to find hoofholds as the alien bent down much like a raptor and began to talk deeper into the ruins. “I take you hive. It rain soon. Rain bad. Burns skin.”
Twilight’s ears fell. Acid rain… Great! It’s a post-apocalyptic world. I’m trapped here, aren't I?
“Sky-person not trapped here! Zuul will reinvent up goers. We can take you to you friends… Uh, take lot time… I was, too sad to do anything… But eat. Let drones do drone things… Lonely…”
Twilight frowned. “Did you just read my mind?”
“Yes! Not this drone. Zuul is all drones. Zuul is… Uh, mind? Yes. Magic-mind.”
Twilight blinked. A slow smile spread across her face. “You’re a hive mind, and you’re friendly?”
“Yes!”
“Uh, how many are you?”
“Um… Lots? Drones like to make drones. No order them to. They just do…” Zuul briefly checked to see how many minds she was at the moment. “We are six… Million? No! Hundred million. Yes.”
“And you’ll help me find my friends?”
“Yes! Friends most important thing ever. Can’t imagine losing a friend! Not having one is bad.”
Twilight smiled, more stress than she knew she had left her body in a heartbeat. Though more than her fair share remained, she felt as if she could be genuine friends with the scary, yet cute, and absurdly lonely alien. “Thank you. I’m Twilight Sparkle. It’s nice to meet you. I’ve never met a hive mind before.”
“I’ve no met a other mind before! Are you one or many?”
“Just one.”
Zuul nodded, a determined expression crossed her face. “Then Zuul will not let Twilight die. Will fix you drone.”
“When you just have one, it’s called a body.”
The thousands of other drones converging on the ruins began to scavenge materials to build their new friend a hospital, and a nice house. No, a palace! No, not a palace, a whole city! Full of things to do. There were reasons to make places, and things to do at those places now. She could do things with a friend! Nothing was too good for her friend. NOTHING!
Not even fighting very mean pirates. Or reinventing space travel. Much of the species which had become Zuul’s knowledge was lost in her creation. It would probably take her a few years to re-discover it.
In the meantime, there was nothing but a reason to celebrate. For five hundred years, there had been only one mind on Tustea. Now there were two.
Zuul wondered if Twilight might be interested cuddles. The trillions of fuzzy fragmented memories in her metaphysical head had always made them seem so nice.