Guard the prisoner 55%
Twilight Sparkle was better now. She would stay better, so long as she didn’t try to use her magic accidentally in the next few days.
Unfortunately, that meant she couldn’t possibly look like a skilled unicorn to the prisoner, since the simplest trick of a space-faring unicorn was making their own gravity. But the captured pony had held her mysteries long enough.
“You both did excellent work,” she said, as the lift came to a stop on crew level. “I couldn’t have asked for a better crew. But.” She raised one wing, cutting them both off. She could see it on their faces, Spike’s concern and Applejack’s sense of justice. Or revenge.
“Naval intelligence is clear on this. The best way to get answers is for me to go alone.” She carefully reached into her jumpsuit, removing the radio and switching it on. “There. You can both listen, but you can’ go in. Go back to doing what you’re doing, and… we’ll catch up when I’m done with her.”
“We’re gonna freeze her, right?” Spike asked. “We’re not going to…” He looked nervously towards Applejack.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Twilight said. “But yes, that’s my plan. When we’ve learned everything we can, we’ll freeze her. Maybe. We can talk about it.” Right now the only two pods she knew worked were hers and Applejack's—she didn’t particularly feel inclined to give up her own spot to a criminal. Maybe Rarity would’ve, but she wasn’t as generous.
“It’s only fer your sake I’d wanna come, cap. You ain’t all together. If she tries something…”
“I have a gun,” Twilight said. “I have more combat training than either of you. It will be fine.” She walked out of the lift, crossing towards the new brig slowly enough for the lift to vanish engineward behind her. Twilight took one last glance at her reflection in the mirror. Formal coat, gold trim, sun on her shoulder—the uniform had survived storage better than Twilight herself.
The cap would hide her bandaged horn, even if the jacket couldn’t do the same for her grieves.
Unfortunately, the crew quarters had never been designed to be used for a brig, which meant there was no way to have this conversation without opening the door. There was a tiny window, but nothing near what they would’ve needed to keep an eye on their guest. She wasn’t afraid to set traps before. She could do it again.
So far as Twilight knew Applejack’s repairs on the prospector hadn’t encountered anything dangerous so far, but they hadn’t actually been inside yet.
“I need you to back away from the door,” Twilight called, loud enough that she was sure her voice would penetrate steel. "I’m armed, but I don’t think there’s any need for violence. We can both be civilized ponies, can’t we?”
“Of course, Captain Twilight, I would love nothing more than to follow your directions.” She heard motion in the room and saw her distant form by the back wall. No sign of a trap, though the walls had been ripped open. But how much of that was Spike’s doing, and how much was the prisoner trying to escape?
“You’re to stay by that wall during our conversation,” Twilight called through the door. If you move, I’ll try to lock you in. If I can’t, I’ll have to shoot. Nothing is more important to me than the safety of my crew.”
“I understand,” the voice answered. “You don’t have anything to worry about, Captain. I can be a cooperative prisoner.”
The door opened. Twilight was momentarily taken aback by the pony’s strange appearance. She was a pegasus, but she was so tall. Those legs looked unnaturally thin, her wings too long.
She knew the look. A spacer child, who hadn’t spent nearly enough time under gravity spell or centrifuge. But did this one grow up on a separatist asteroid colony, or on the Equinox?
There were no traps she could see, no sign that anything in the room had been moved. Twilight sat down in the doorway, keeping her earth-pony pistol close at hoof if she needed it. “You already know my name,” she began. “I’m told your name is Cozy Glow, is that correct?”
She nodded.
“Why are you on my ship, Cozy Glow?”
“Same reason you are,” the pegasus rose to her hooves, stretching out her wings casually. “But I think I understand it better than you. Not to say I’m smarter than you—obviously, I couldn’t be, you’re the most brilliant pony in Equestria. But I have better information.”
“We’re here to contact the ones who sent the Signal,” Twilight said, annoyed. “You expect me to believe that some kind of… Signaler superfan… stole a piece of our starship and set traps all over… because that would help with our mission?”
“Well…” From her expression, it almost seemed like she did. “It’s not help how you think. The Listeners didn’t just hear the Signal, we translated it."
What?
"We’re both here to help Equestria, but the Listeners understand what Equestria will have to do to survive, and… you’re doing your best to make sure we don’t. But being accidental won’t help if invaders show up in our star system and kill everypony.”
Twilight’s blood chilled in her veins. I really hope you’re wrong. We already made contact. There was no reason to share that information, though. No reason to believe a word this pony was saying. For all Twilight knew, this “Listener” organization was some kind of Xenophobic cult, or… maybe didn’t exist at all.
But there was one way to be sure. “We already know what the message was,” Twilight snapped, puffing out her chest a little. “It wasn’t words, it was a signal of intelligence. A call for new friends. It’s a series of patterns and math problems.”
Cozy Glow shook her head. “That’s only what’s on the surface. Bring me to a computer, and I can show you.”
1. Give her a terminal. If Equestria is really in danger, we need to know what we’ve done. All other risks are secondary.
2. Don’t. It’s obviously some kind of ruse to get access to our systems. She’s saying whatever she thinks she has to say to get us to do what she wants. For all we know she has some failsafe in place in case she got captured, and she’ll just use it. Call her bluff, press her to learn why she’s really here.
3. Bring a written copy of the signal. The danger might be real, but Cozy Glow is dangerous too. The signal’s mathematics are so advanced that even Ph.D. level scholars can’t fully understand its total complexity, but that shouldn’t be required. She only has to show the translation, not invent it herself.
4. Applejack suggests rigging an expedition terminal with data from the signal and nothing else. We don’t have very many portable terminals and they’re impossible to replace, but risking one seems like the best compromise. That way she won’t have any argument that she lacks the computational power to give her evidence, but won’t be able to affect the Equinox either.