Set up shelter right here and rest until morning
The field shelter really was its own little marvel of engineering. As they worked together to get the plastic shell standing, Twilight found herself even more confident of its security against the alien environment around them.
This one hadn’t been packed away in an air-evacuated storage cell for the duration of the trip—this one was so fresh she imagined it would still be smelling of fabricator plastic. It still squeaked, and the joints were still stiff as they wedged it onto one of the rare landings on their little stairwell, tucked in against a door.
It was the perfect size for the two of them, though somepony would end up sleeping with their legs dangling onto the step below. Twilight switched it on, and the sound of the filter-inflator filled the corridor with a quite whirring. Positive pressure for the interior, so that all the air going in would be secure. If there was a minor leak, positive pressure would make sure that it didn’t spell contamination for anyone inside.
They didn’t have to load in much—the front of their suits actually secured to special docking zippers, so that once they were in they just had to crawl out into the interior. It had another entrance—for emergencies. The airlock unit came separately, and would’ve added unnecessary weight to their expedition.
As it was, the interior already had what they’d need—a meal, sanitary supplies, and a paper-thing reflective mylar blanket. Only the height crackling comfort for sleeping on the ground.
At least whoever had designed the emergency shelter had thought of building a light into the ceiling. If Twilight had kept a book to read inside her suit, she’d be all set.
“Wild to think we’re out here on an honest-to-goodness alien world,” Applejack muttered, between the metallic crackles of the shifting blanket. “Twenty years ago, ponies would ‘a laughed at an idea so crazy.”
“Seventy years now,” Twilight muttered, staring up through the clear plastic ceiling of the tent at… another ceiling. Something like cement, without any writing or hint at erosion. They sure did build this stuff to last. Are we underground yet, even, or still in the city above it?
“Right,” Applejack repeated, voice weak. “I almost forgot.” An awkward silence returned, other than the crinkling mylar film whenever they moved.
Twilight couldn’t even do anything productive in the tent—there was a tiny toolkit inside, with a single scrap of paper and a shred of charcoal for a pencil. But what would she have written on them? Nothing important.
Soon enough Applejack was snoring, and Twilight was left to herself. She played with the idea of blasting herself to sleep with a spell, or creating a little bubble of silence. But both seemed excessive, given she might need her magic tomorrow.
I already failed last time I used it. I need to have my strength up for the next one.
Then she heard a voice—distant and dim, barely loud enough to hear over the snoring and the filter. She hadn’t been able to make out what it said, but she recognized the voice.
Node.
“You.” Twilight crawled over to the side of the shelter, leaning up close to the fabric where Node’s cart had been turned on its side. They couldn’t take the chance of it rolling off on them, and shattering the delicate communications device. “Sorry, I didn’t hear that. Maybe you could repeat it for me?”
She listened for any change in applejack’s breathing—nope. Same snoring as before.
“I woke on watchdog after not being moved for 65,536 cycles. Why are we not in motion?”
“Because…” she bit back her frustration. It might be the reaction a pony like Node would’ve deserved, but Node was not a pony. Besides, she wasn’t tired yet. “Because we require rest. This is our resting period.”
There was a brief silence on the other side of the plastic sheet. There was no window near ground level, so she couldn’t see what appeared on the screen. But she could see when it activated, glowing on and off.
“How long is this resting period?”
“Approximately eight hours,” Twilight answered, smiling smugly to herself. “Is that period unsafe for… wherever this is?”
“In Ponish, emergency causeway. They were not used much.”
“Like when your planet got attacked?” Twilight suggested, almost casually.
“Yes,” Node answered. Starlight Glimmer’s voice wasn’t capable of emotional inflection—yet the recording seemed slower, somehow. More thoughtful. “Not this side. No bombardment here, or there would be no reason.”
I’m actually getting it to talk! Twilight’s mind raced, tiredness forgotten. Questions flooded her, but she kept them all back. I have to keep it on this subject. The radio it’s wearing is recording everything. I can review it all later.
“It looked like there was,” Twilight said, voice cautious. “Broken buildings, holes in stuff… we saw it on our way in.”
There was a long silence before Node answered, so long that Twilight wondered if she’d gone too far. “No,” Node finally said. “That wasn’t bombardment. That was fighting back.”
Twilight probably wouldn’t get anything more from whoever was on the other line. Even translated, even though the recordings of a unicorn a trillion trillion kilometers away, she imagined she could feel its grief. “Why did you want us to take your device here?” she asked.
She didn’t really expect an answer. Whenever Node got close to really saying anything interesting, it seemed to either revert back to spitting out vague nothings, or just went quiet.
“You not… words.”
“Survivors?” Twilight offered. “A shelter?”
“No transience to shelter,” Node said. “Something… manipulation hardware. For me.”
“Hardware? We already built your design. That’s how we’re communicating. This… device. Impressive signal attenuation, to speak through rock like this.”
“No. It is a body… mechanical. For me.”
Twilight swallowed. She knew about prosthetic limbs well enough, but to have an entire body controlled that way? “A probe with manipulators. Built for gravity. You can interface it with our technology?”
“Have to. Only chance to… keep you alive.”
Now Twilight knew why they were here. Node stopped responding after that, and eventually Twilight rested. But when she woke, she played the recording back for Applejack, complete with her distant snores.
There was no way to secretly discuss what they planned to do. Twilight would just have to decide, and hope her engineer would accept her decision.
1. Abandon the mission. The signalers had powerful technology in their space probes, how dangerous could their land probes be? We shouldn’t cooperate. So long as Node doesn’t have a body of its own, we can control it.
2. Try to find the way through and reach Node’s destination. It said it was trying to help us. If it really wanted us dead, Node could’ve probably used the Equinox’s computers for that. Fighting it is silly after coming all this far.
3. Destroy Node. Technical problems grow out of control. It sounded like Node was part of a war that deeply disturbs it, even now. Cozy Glow might’ve been right. Maybe the Signalers are the wrong side to be on.
(Confidence 205 required)