I cautiously switched off the front door shields with my green tablet, poking my head out into the, now-decimated, island.
The unexpected tsunami had done well in flattening out most of the foliage and turning the sandy beach into a mile of muck and puddles. The sea was still upset, and waves crashed fiercely on the rocky shores. The Quarantine Enforcement Platform seemed to be absolutely fine, with nary a scratch on its green-tinted, metallic surface.
However... the thing that had been shot down... the flaming mountain that now sat comfortably in the sea... it was still there, just staring at me. The fires had died down slightly, however, and I could see a few more features of the strange... craft. Yes... a ship, of some kind.
It seemed like yet another thing from a sci-fi novel, yet another reminder of how far from home I was. It was predominantly white, and I squinted as my mind immediately drew a connection between the... spaceship and the white-metal technology I had discovered before. It was oblong, and was shaped vaguely like a seafaring ship, with a bow and a stern. Except, it didn't have any sails, nor did it have a steam-operated mechanism.
Woohoo... another piece of technology I didn't understand!
I wondered to myself if the ship was made by the same creatures who made the habitat back on my home island (was that still standing after the tsunami?) It sure seemed similar to their rounded, futuristic builds, and the blue glowing spots on the ship sure looked familiar to the panels on the metal boxes. Then again, I could be making the mistake of taking technology I couldn't understand and differentiating it from technology I could loosely relate to. Maybe they were completely different. After all, most trains looked fairly familiar back at home... made out of wood and some iron and spewed smoke, right?
I had only one question: were there other intelligent creatures on that ship? I know the recorded voice from the Platform had announced that it predicted no survivors... but maybe? Just maybe? Surely it couldn't know everything! I just wanted to talk to somepony damnit!
And why did the Platform shoot it down without question? There was, as far as I knew, nopony was piloting the gigantic cannon on the roof, so had the structure been built specifically to magically identify and shoot down anything that came in range?
I briefly considered flying over to the ship immediately, but then the shadow of the Quarantine Enforcement Platform niggled at the back of my head. I hadn't explored it fully, perhaps there was a way to turn it off? If any other ships like it came along, I didn't want them to meet the same fate. They were probably the only way I was going to be rescued from this Tartarus of salt water and burning sunlight and ghostly sea creatures that would come from the deep and swallow you-
What was I talking about again?
Right, the Quarantine Enforcement Platform. Perhaps I could find more answers in there. Besides, I doubted I could safely approach the ship without cooking alive from all the fire licking up its white-metal hull. I briefly wondered where all the ponies in this place got all their metal from to make their technologies and buildings. Back in Equestria, workable metal was a valuable commodity. Gems were plentiful, but you couldn't exactly build a steam locomotive out of diamonds (we had tried). Gold was too soft and melted too easily, and silver was about as common as shale and about as useful as it. There wasn't enough iron on the face of the planet Equus to build stuff like this...
I walked back into the cool interior of the Enforcement Platform, and I, after a small spike of paranoia, switched on the shield behind me. I began my descent through the facility once more. To my immense relief, the building didn't do anything suspicious as I made my trip once more. The levitation ride down the shaft still gave me a pause, but I just took a deep breath at the bottom, and continued back to the point I was.
The now-opened display case where the Plasma Rifle was sitting as well as the deep burn mark in the floor were exactly how I left them, although the burn mark had stopped smoking by now. I began my upwards ascent once more, taking the ramps up to the top of the tall room.
At the absolute top of the chamber, I found another green magical shield hooked up to a terminal. Written in bold above the entrance was: "RESTRICTED AREA: AUTHORIZED PONIES ONLY". Unless the terminal readout was lying to me... I had access to everything here...
The shield powered down and dropped as soon as I floated my tablet next to the terminal. Bow before me, I, the holder of the mighty green tablet!
Whatever the last room was, it sure seemed to be a pretty dead end, with no other exit corridor visible on the walls. The room itself was long, rectangular, with a long walkway going through the center and a lowered floor off the left and right. At the far end of the room was a huge, pulsating... machine. I felt a burning pressure against my horn when I looked at it, I could tell that it was the major source of power in this building. I raised an eyebrow when I noticed a large, rectangular, and most importantly: red button.
Something told me that pushing a big, red button connected to a source of immense power was a bad idea.
It apparently didn't stop my curiosity as I trotted closer and closer to the glowing, green core and its accompanying glowing, red button. I was soon at the base of the humongous core, and could feel the throbbing of its power on all my sources of magical sensation: horn, wings, and hooves.
What had they, all the iterations of me and my friends from this universe, really been trying to do? I mean, yeah, they were here to cure that strange disease, Kharaa. However, did that really necessitate the dedication of a magical power source this immense to energize this facility, which in itself was a cannon to shoot down anything that broke quarantine? If that was truly what it was, then this... disease... must have been a serious one indeed.
Alter-me had made it quite clear that all that the ponies were here to do was to research a cure. In fact, she seemed desperate to move on as soon as it seemed like they had exhausted most of their options. I wondered how different Alter-me was from... well... me. I thought that if I were in the same situation, I would probably comb every square inch of this place. I wouldn't be able to get over the nightmares of leaving a job incomplete, after all!
A notable detail to the Red Button was a label "Restore Facility Operational Status - Primary Quarantine Override". I hummed, raising a hoof. The Red Button didn't say "Detonate" on it... so...
I bet it would make a satisfying "Ka-Chunk" sound if I would press it...
I reached out, felt the button under my hoof, and then pushed forward. And yes, it did make a fairly satisfying "Ka-Chunk" when I pressed it. The other sounds it made, however, were not as giggle-inducingly fun. Namely, the "thack" as a shield appeared around my hoof, freezing it in place, and the sound of metal links as a strange, tentacle-like arm shot out from the apparatus. "Please hold still," a voice said from the button, before the metallic arm extended a long, sharp needle.
I gasped as the needle turned and shot onto my hoof, and began drawing blood. As soon as the needle retracted, the restraining shield dropped, and I shook my hoof as I tried to shake off the feeling of being invaded. I looked back up at the Red Button, just in time to see the metallic arm retract back into the frame behind the button.
"Subject identified: Director Twilight Sparkle. Access level: Omni. Status: Infected."
Infected...???
"Warning: Infected individuals may not deactivate the Quarantine Enforcement Platform. Security clearance accepted, returning facility to normal operational status. Error. Unable to deactivate the primary power coupling. Automated Quarantine Enforcement still authorized." a voice from the core declared.
I jumped a little as the lights brightened suddenly, and the sounds of whirring became audible in the walls.
"Facility Operational Status restored, rebooting user consoles," the main facility voice declared.
Suddenly, all of the walls around the room I was in rotated, revealing banks and banks of consoles similar to the ones I had found earlier. Displays lit up, and I heard several startling mechanical noises from all around the facility.
"Error: Unable to communicate with other installations on the planet. Error -106, Network Unavailable. Please contact your network administrator. Unable to restore operational status on other facilities, all other facilities retain emergency hibernation status," the same facility voice added.
I looked at, what looked like the primary control console that had unfolded out from the walls. I gagged, my eyes laying on something I had hoped I would never see.
A body. A very dead one.
I slowly and cautiously approached it, brows furrowed as I examined it. Only after my second pass did I finally recognize the pony the body belonged to: in my world, it was the Captain of the Wonderbolts, Spitfire. Her brilliant yellow body was sunken, gaunt, and stiff. She was still wearing a uniform, one quite unfamiliar to me. It held a shade familiar to the rest of the building, slightly greenish gray. There was a small insignia, as well as a patch reading "Her Majesty's Royal Marines".
Her hooves were wrapped tightly around a purple tablet, which, of course, still glowed a dim purple. I took out my plasma rifle, cautiously using my telekinesis to... push the purple tablet out of her dead hooves. I screamed, however, as, when the rifle's... end bit tapped her hoof slightly, her entire body crumbled, turning to dust. I coughed a little as the plumes of dead cells flew into my face, and when I regained my sight, all that was left was an ancient uniform and a lonely, purple tablet.
Long-preserved bodies tended to crumble when touched... I guess a thousand years would do that...
I turned the uniform over, finding a metal pin insignia of Celestia's cutie mark, engraved with the numbers: 03142193-KLA02-N122. I took the purple tablet as well, frowning as I heard a beep from my makeshift backpack. I took out my green tablet, which currently had the words: "Downloading new data..." on its display.
I frowned, and after a moment, the two tablets made an identical beeping sound. My tablet then changed its display to: "Download complete." and then back to its original display of General Access Keydom.
What's a download?
Couldn't be anything extremely important, I put my tablet back in my backpack and took a look at the newly-revealed primary control console. How did I know what it was? Well, mostly due to the fact that it was big, central, and had the gigantic neon words "PRIMARY CONTROL CONSOLE" floating above its interface. I prepared myself, since if the last terminal I had used was any indication, this thing was about to communicate telepathically with me.
I tapped the gigantic floating "Control Console" image, and I felt the twinge in my horn as the world collapsed around me. The first screen the terminal presented to me was another main menu, much like the other terminal's. There were, however, large flashing red lettering spelling out "FIRE ON SIGHT AUTHORIZED" over the "Targeting" option.
I went into "Targeting" to find a plethora of options. The top and currently highlighted option was "Fire On Sight" many of the other options were meaningless acronyms such as "ACS" "ASB" "HID" "MICRO" and "PSB". I selected the last option on the list, since it was labelled "Deactivate Targeting", and then went into that option.
"Access Denied. Infected individuals may not deactivate the Quarantine Enforcement Platform. Infected individuals may not leave the planet."
It kept going on about me being infected. Again, I didn't feel sick! At all! I don't even know how I would've caught their thousand-year-old disease! Biology told me that any disease would die out eventually as wildlife and ponies became immune to it.
I grumbled mentally, and returned to the main menu. I selected the next option on the list "Access Local Files". I hummed as a great number of files were presented to me. Well... time for some reading, hmm?
I noticed a small button at the top of the menu labelled "Upload to Tablet". I did remember there being a file function on my green tablet... could I read them on there? Or maybe I could have them displayed... like... not telepathically? As much as I would enjoy being able to read without moving my eyes or without time moving, I really wanted to relax under a tree and read with the sea breeze on my ba- you know what? Maybe I didn't wanna read by the ocean. Maybe sitting in my cool, shady habitat would be better. Yeah. Not-ocean was better.
I hit the upload button, and I registered a telepathic beep from my green tablet. Waiiit... was that what it was doing? Huh.
For now, though, I moved to the most exciting-looking entry on the list to read now. It was titled "Enforcement Platform Engagement Log". The text appeared in front of me.
0142 02/10/1498 ANM
RED ALERT: Hostile units inbound towards the planet. All defensive systems have been activated. Prepare for orbital defense maneuvers. Friendly units in orbit: HMS Vance, HMS Lancer, HMS Celestia, HMS Predator. Hostile units: Five (5) Maelstrom Insurgent Transport Ships, Seven (7) Maelstrom Destroyers, Two (2) Maelstrom Gunships. Initiating Planetary Support Battery (PSB) Protocols.
Firing Sequence (Manual): HMS Lancer has spotted and marked an enemy transport, adjusting firing path. Target acquisition: targeting crew and life support array. FIRING. Good effect on target, enemy hull breached, significant personnel loss. Damage: Sufficient.
Firing Sequence (Manual): HMS Lancer has spotted and marked an enemy gunship, adjusting firing path. Target acquisition: firing at enemy anti-fighter systems. FIRING. Good effect on target, targeted weaponry destroyed. Damage: Sufficient.
Firing Sequence (Manual): HMS Lancer has spotted and marked an enemy gunship, adjusting firing path. Target acquisition: firing at enemy ASB. FIRING. No effect on target, enemy shield overcharge has deflected artillery beam. Damage: None.
Firing Sequence (Manual): Firing again at surviving enemy gunship, firing path on target. Target acquisition: firing at enemy ASB. FIRING. Good effect on target, enemy ASB offline. Damage: Sufficient.
Firing Sequence (Manual): HMS Lancer has spotted and marked final enemy transport ship, adjusting firing path. Target acquisition: orbital thrusters. FIRING. Good effect on target, enemy craft downed and burning up in orbit. Damage: Sufficient.
All enemy craft destroyed, facility returning to operational status.
0549 08/10/1498 ANM
Planetary Quarantine Alert: all stations go to alert status. Infected Individuals are not allowed to leave the planet. Infected individuals are not allowed to deactivate planetary quarantine status. Fire on Sight is authorized.
0312 10/10/1498 ANM
(Automatic) Cannon has fired on a craft attempting to reach orbit. Reason: Infected individuals are not allowed to leave the planet. Target status: Destroyed. Projected survivors: Zero (0). Craft name: HMS Lancer. Crew: 98 Reported Onboard. Complete detonation of power reactor after direct hit. Craft obliterated.
1341 15/11/1498 ANM
(Automatic) Cannon has fired on a craft entering orbit. Reason: Planet is under quarantine. Fire on Sight authorized. Target Status: Severely damaged. Projected survivors: Five (5). Craft name: HMS Hoofington. Crew: 20 Detected Onboard. Self-Warping Quarantine Enforcer Unit-1932 and 1022 dispatched to location to detain or terminate survivors as needed.
0238 19/11/1498 ANM
(Automatic) Cannon has fired on a craft attempting to reach orbit. Reason: Infected individuals are not allowed to leave the planet. !NO CONTACT WITH TARGET! Target Status: Unharmed. Projected survivors: One (1). Craft name: N/A (Craft is an unnamed Royal Marines dropship). Crew: 1 Reported Onboard. Craft used a teleportation device to confuse targeting sensors.
1442 23/01/2283 ANM
(Automatic) Cannon has fired on a craft entering orbit. Reason: Planet is under quarantine. Fire on Sight authorized. Target Status: Severely Damaged. Projected Survivors: Three (3). Craft name: (CULTURALLY-SPECIFIC UNTRANSLATABLE CONCEPT). Crew: 6 Detected Onboard. Target was on the peripheral of the targeting range of this platform, cannon failed to hit designated mark, and instead disabled ship's thrusters. Ship has gone down in a Dead Zone. Self-Warping Quarantine Enforcer Units have been notified, but no active search is ongoing.
1235 24/04/2498 ANM
(Automatic) Cannon has fired on a craft entering orbit. Reason: Planet is under quarantine. Fire on Sight authorized. Target Status: Damaged. Projected Survivors: Zero (0). Craft name: (Translated) Aurora. Crew: 157 Detected Onboard. Target was large enough for it to require multiple charges to completely destroy it. Unable to charge more than once before craft could theoretically escape targeting range. Orbital thrusters targeted to bring the ship down to the planetary surface. Confirmed damage to detected escape pod bays to prevent crew survival. Ship is still mostly intact.
Wait... that last one... was that the spaceship just outside? Of course, by just outside I meant two miles away. The document described the last ship as too large to be destroyed in one charge, and I'm pretty sure the mountain-sized wreck was... sufficiently large. It was also the last one described in the list... so...
I checked the dates. There was a thousand-year gap between the missed target and the destroyed one. Did nopony really come to this place in a thousand years? Of so, then why all this activity now? I lost some hope upon reading how detailed the reports were... I had a feeling that there really weren't any survivors from the big ship outside. Well... figures. The universe seemed to be determined to keep me lonely.
From Princess of Friendship to the Princess of Being Utterly Alone. Worst of all, I don't think I could ever go back to my own time...
...
...
There were many other entries on the list, some of which I actually recognized! Classical works, a few twenty-thousand word essays on Starswirl the Bearded (perfect for midnight reading). Books. Some nice reading material for my lonely, friendless nights. Friendlessness. Yep. It's fine. It's fine. It's FINE. I was a strong pony. I didn't need friends! Right? RIGHT!?
Okay? You know how FINE it is now? It's FINE. It's very fine.
Another interesting-looking entry on the local files list was called "Ground-To-Air Gunnery Platform Modular Schematics". I went into the entry, and the machine projected the image of what I recognized as the Quarantine Enforcement Platform, but with none of the island attached to it, fully visible. I have to say... I didn't expect it to be that big...
Ground-To-Air Gunnery Platform.
Installed on Research Zone BP-4546b for defensive and quarantine procedures.
Construction material: Made out of DuraSteel construction amalgam. Imported metals used in construction. Made to be impervious to most kinetic and plasma weaponry.
Power: Designed to be wirelessly-powered by the Thermal Power Reactor in the Active Lava Zone. Emergency power is available on-site using existing ocean currents, emergency power is insufficient for ASB and PSB weapon operations.
Utilities: Personnel barracks to be installed. Moonpool located on Floor B, submersible vehicle recharging, drydocking, and repair systems in place and operational. Control center located by Primary Ion Conduit.
Hmm... another facility you say? In an Active Lava Zone? So... like a volcano? Well, as long as it wasn't underwater and on an island or something, it would be fine. After all, who built stuff underwater? Right?
Maybe I would be able to deactivate the gun if I could disrupt the power station. My basic knowledge of electronics told me that if you stopped the power source, the rest of the thingie would stop working. If I could turn off the reactor, perhaps I could stop the gun from firing?
Why did I wanna stop the gun from firing? Well... because I had a strange feeling... a pretty crazy feeling, actually.
I didn't actually think there was other intelligent life on the entire planet I was on. Alter-me and the rest of the ponies who once lived here had come from elsewhere, using ships kinda like the one that got shot down right in front of me. Coming from... Space. That theoretical thing that existed outside of the planet: Space. Astronomers back at home theorized that other planets like ours existed out in Space. I had laughed at them, of course. All that was out there was Luna's stars and the Cosmic Creatures.
Well, and the Moon of course.
However, here I was. I definitely wasn't on Equus anymore. The huge, red moon in orbit made that much apparent, not to mention the foreign creatures that I had come into contact with. Perhaps the Equestria of this timeline had gone beyond Equus, travelling through this theoretical Space to other planets, crafting those spaceships alike those of Spike's comics to travel. All intelligent signs of life I had seen so far were not from this planet, they were all from their own planets! They had used their own spaceships to come here... which meant that the only way to get here (or get off of here) was by one of those fascinating ships.
And if I was gonna get rescued, I couldn't have this gun-thingie shooting down all of my rescuers.
Secondly, these systems kept insisting that I was "Infected". I figured that if these ponies were so interested in finding a cure for this disease, it was fatal. And while Spitfire could've died from anything, I had a hunch that she died from this "Kharaa", since the recording had stated that she was infected. If I was really infected with a deadly disease, I wanted to know a little bit about it. If there was any treatment for it, it would not be in their military installation (this was an artillery station, so I figured that they couldn't have been using it for all that much research). Medicine would be in another facility on the planet, and this power plant was the only other one hinted at.
I nodded mentally, before going on to peruse the rest of the files. Maybe I could find the location of another facility in this place in their, preferably one that did research. They would have the answers.
Oh. Right. My other objective: Survival. Preferably, find a way to go back home. That way everything would be hunky-dory. Although, my more logical side reminded me that it was most likely completely impossible.
A teensy-weensy bit of hope, me, just a bit of hope.
There were a bunch of other files, filled with a bit of inane data I couldn't make sense of (I guess there was some context the original ponies in this facility would have to understand). I did notice a log named "Research Zone BP-4546b - All Personnel". I entered it with curiosity.
CREW LOG - PERSONNEL REGISTRAR
Director of Operations Twilight Sparkle: Infected (Kharaa contagion)
Commander of Military Operations Rainbow Dash: Uploaded (Physical manifestation destroyed)
Director of Genetic Research Rarity Belle: KIA (Cause of death: Kharaa contagion)
Whelp. The disease was most definitely deadly. Great.
Chief Technical Officer Pinkie Pie: Uploaded (Physical manifestation destroyed)
Director of Ecological Research Fluttershy: KIA (Cause of death: Kharaa contagion)
Director of Botanical Research Applejack: KIA (Cause of death: Kharaa contagion)
1st Lieutenant Spitfire: KIA (Cause of death: Kharaa contagion)
2nd Lieutenant Glimmering Shield: KIA (Cause of death: Kharaa contagion)
My eyes nearly glazed over as I stared at the rows and rows of text continuing down for an eternity. I counted at least two-hundred staff, though I wondered if this list was only for this local area... and if all of the ponies involved in this place were listed.
Also that had most definitely confirmed my theory that the rest of my friends had once been stationed here. And, if the system was correct, I was correct in my assumption that they were long gone. However, I found the words "Uploaded" and "Physical manifestation destroyed" interesting. The terminal wasn't saying they were outrightly dead... what did "Uploaded" mean anyway? I had seen it a few times before... but in this context the word made no sense.
And "Physical manifestation destroyed". What could that mean? Did it mean that their bodies had been incinerated? That would make sense... I guess. Back home, doctor ponies would burn bodies during plagues and other pandemics to keep disease from spreading. Perhaps that's what they were doing here? If so, why did no other KIA reports say that the bodies had been destroyed? Why was this "Uploaded" status only seen with "Physical Manifestation Destroyed".
I shook my head mentally, exiting the file and continuing down through the central control terminal. More green-tinted lines scrolled by my mind's eye, most of them being incomplete files or meaningless information. Eventually, I exited the file system, looking for anything else I could access from this control terminal.
There were other options, although the red flashing text of "FIRE ON SIGHT AUTHORIZED" still bugged me to no end. One of them was "Moonpool Functions". Closing that big pool of water downstairs off from the Ocean sounded good enough to me... and I sincerely hoped there was a way to do that from here. Failing that, maybe I could at least learn something about the specific individual mechanics of this place.
An image of the giant pool of water downstairs was projected onto my mind. Interestingly, I saw several mechanisms hidden in the ceiling of the room in the projected version of it. When I mentally poked them, the terminal lit up with the text over them "Docking systems".
I mentally poked around the functions of the moonpool area itself. There was a function to turn the lights in the area on and off, and there was another function to "Enable/Disable Sonic Repellers". ...Sonic what-nows? They were currently set to on... but I was not sure whether or not I wanted to turn it off.... So, I simply passed over it, adding it to the ever growing pile of things I didn't understand.
"List Registered Vehicles" was an option that next caught my eye. I triggered it with my magic, and up popped a list of several red, glowing boxes. I counted about twenty boxes, all of them bearing a series of numbers and letters that I can only assume to be some form of a serial number. All of these boxes held a mental image of... some kind of oblong... thing. The vehicles looked like they were winged, with two outstretched, stiff metallic "wings" going outwards from a oblong body. It shared its boxy look with the rest of the black-metal technology, and I could see features like hatches and windows on it. Below these images were the words "Griffco Mobile Submersibles", and then the text [REFITTED FOR USE BY EQUESTRIAN MILITARY].
A few of the boxes differed from the others, a bunch of them appeared to be much smaller versions of the others. This time, they missed the wings, instead being small, contained boxy little things with two rings connected to either side of the vessel. They looked to be coloured yellow, and had a visible array of mechanical arms folded into its sides. Unlike the others, they had no hatches or windows, and I wondered if they were automated just like so many other things in this place.
All of the red boxes had the detail attached to them "No Contact", all except one, which was a green colour instead of a red colour. It was one of the larger vessels, with the serial number SKP-01850900. It had the appended detail "Decommissioned for Maintenance", instead of "No Contact" like the rest of them. It also was shown that it was currently docked... and there was an option to deploy it remotely.
I tried that option, it being the only thing available on the screen. I felt quite put out as it gave me a familiar answer: "Error. Code -106. Network not found. Please attempt to access the system directly."
Well... I guess I had less reason to be dissapointed. Unlike the other "errors" it had given me, I believe I was actually in the same location as this one. Maybe I could actually attempt to access this one directly. I kept the pool in mind. While I had no intentions of piloting a submarine in these waters... there could very well be supplies inside, and perhaps more insight as to what was happening around here.
I backed out from the moonpool menu, seeing nothing else to really be done. There was another option in the main screen, "Networking". I predicted it would probably tell me something about how this "Network" was not working and how I should contact an administrator. And it did do so, slamming me in the face with a -106 error again. However, there was another interactable option next to the glowing error message.
"Power Networking"
I triggered it with my magic, and, surprisingly enough, it brought up a screen that was not just a blank white with another error on it! It was, instead, a featureless green with several lines of text.
Primary Power: ONLINE.
Receiving power from Sector A-1 Thermal Plant: 50 MegaSparks/S.
Quarantine protocols enabled - Quarantine Enforcement Platform at top power priority.
Power networking is stable. Quarantine protocols prevent manual depowering of current facility.
Another interesting tidbit of information was not written, but instead transmitted through my magic. It was similar to the interrogation results from the portal on my home island. A location, the origins of a spell. Considering the nature of this page, I felt like I could assume it might be whatever teleportation spell was bringing energy up from the "Thermal Plant".
Catch is, I sensed it to be a kilometer... straight down.
I had said earlier about needing to be a madmare to build underwater, but it seems that is exactly what the constructors of this place decided to do. Build deep in the bowels of the unrelenting, unfeeling oceans. But why? But why, I asked! How was making power all the way down in the depths of the ocean so much harder than building one up here? With all those... monsters I had seen outside, it could not have been any easier than just building up here.
I shook my head, taking one more perusal through the options available from the main menu. Half of them returned with that same error, while others led to screens I could not understand or I could really describe in words. I eventually backed out of the terminal, coming back into the world of vivid reality.
I looked behind me, spying once again the pile of decayed dust and an intact uniform that was once the body of Spitfire. I frowned, walking over to it. I was no superstitious mare, but I had respect for the dead. Sure, she was at least one thousand years long gone... but that didn't mean I couldn't give her a funeral.
Her uniform was a different story, however, as I spied its grey fabrics and rather sturdy and cosy look. Its old owner was a thousand years long gone at this point, and I was in a survival situation where I didn't know when warmth or fabric could save my life. Besides, these Equestrians were centuries ahead of the Equestria I knew, who knew how much they might have advanced in the art of the dress in that time?
I jently shook the dusty remains of Spitfire off the uniform, before gathering the dust into one big pile. Then, I began to shrug on the pegasus mare's old uniform. Surprisingly, aside from a distinct musty smell, it seemed to be mostly unharmed. The fabrics of the uniform clung closely to my body, but did not in any way suffocate me, although the collar was a bit too high for my liking and the wingholes were not exactly made for my oversize alicorn wings.
Beggars can't be choosers.
Then, muttering a silent apology to the dead pegasus, I scooped up Spitfire's dust into a big ball held together by my telekinesis. Then, I reattached my backpack (I had taken it off to put on my uniform), and began to head out, wondering if I could find any functions for that moonpool.
On my way out, I wondered what my next move was going to be. It definitely was not to go down a kilometre below this blasted ocean in search of some enchanted localization signal I had divined from the terminal. If I wanted suicide, I would have done so a long time back on my home island. I suppose that, if anything, this facility had done wonders to my survival chances. My old shelter was nowhere near as spacious, lit up, or as sturdy as this one was, despite this one being seemingly older (then again, I guess the other one might have been aeons older and I wouldn't be able to really tell... although that possibility was remote.)
So I guessed my first plan of action was to move camp to this island instead. This old facility would prove to be more than enough to suit my needs, and was also not infested by Crabbies. Although, perhaps I would also need to find a way to migrate some of the plants over there that I had been using as my food source. I did think I saw more Water Trees outside, so I would be good on a temporary source of intermedial supplies...
I looked at the moonpool as I arrived in it, pursing my lips. I was still carrying Spitfire's remains, which I deigned to spread across the beach outside (I had heard it was a way of giving a funeral to a pony's ashes after cremation, so I guessed it was as good as anything). And as I looked down into the all-too-calm waters of the moonpool, I felt that jolt of fear in my heart again.
I decided that I would put Spitfire to rest before I came back down here to... try and... stay far away from the water as possible.
There was a definite strong breeze outside as I stepped outside of the Enforcement Platform again. Some dust flew off my delicately put-together ball of Spitfire Sand as I took in the vista outside once again. The flaming mountain that was the alien ship towered over me, and I took a deep breath as I once again wondered at the size of the place.
The only reason I had to call it a "ship" was its vague relation to science fiction's flying saucers, and its similarities to the Airships that would constantly dock and fly from Canterlot. I noticed the mighty ship was slightly submerged in the water. The area where it rested must be shallower than I expected, as the ocean so far had been a deep dark deathtrap.
I rubbed my forehead with a hoof. At least I could vaguely grasp the workings of the black-metal machinery so far, I couldn't even fathom how the white-metal technology on the island worked! How was I supposed to comprehend this behemoth before me!?
Calm down, Twilight, calm down. I'm sure everything will be okay. Panic is the first step towards death and yada yada.
I looked at the floating ball of Spitfire's corpse. Well... sorry you had to be put to rest by somepony you didn't even know all that well. Let's just hope some other ponies are alive somewhere in this Celestia forsaken universe.
With a sympathetic frown towards the uncomprehending ball of ash, I hovered it over the choppy, tsunami-disturbed seas and let the dust slowly trickle from my telekinetic ball. Like an hourglass slowly counting down, the ball slowly crumbled out and then depleted from my magical grip. The dust settled on the ocean water, and was carried and then washed underwater by the waves.
"Sorry..." I said, before turning away from the stormed shores of the island.
Now that all that ceremony and gloom was done, it was time to get down to business. I briefly considered making a flight back to my shelter on the other island, packing up the rest of my stuff and flying it back here. After all, the sun was starting to go down and a storm looked like it was going to roll in. I didn't have enough supplies here to survive comfortably, unlike back on the other island.
I decided I would fly back home and recover my belongings for a flight back. And if those stormclouds on the horizon overtook me by then, then I would still have the shelter of the abandoned habitat on the other island. So, I spread my wings, and took flight.
Wind began to pick up as I flew towards my island. Waves crashed beneath me, the ocean upset after the tsunami. It was only while I flew that I wondered if my own island had been upset by the tidal wave the white-metal ship made when it crash landed. I also prayed to Celestia that nothing of mine had been irreversibly broken. Sure... it wasn't anything that I couldn't replace (except maybe the other white-metal tablets), but I had still put a lot of work into that stuff dammit!
I found the island about where I had left it. I took note of its relative position to the giant shipwreck. It was behind the ship's stern (again, applying terms I didn't know applied or not), and I could see the gaping maw of several cone-shaped openings of some sort. I couldn't fathom what they might be for. I realized that the ship could be a great way to navigate my way around this mostly featureless ocean. It was now a gigantic, glowing, incomprehensible landmark.
...I would've taken a mountain or a particularly large tree any day of my life.
It was only as I circled the island to land, as I looked down to try and assess any damage, that I noticed something new had landed on my island. It was round, and made out of white-metal. A big glowing glyph of some kind marked its side, and had the look of a curly bottom with a line going up and then flattening out horizontally.
It was beached on the shore of the part of the island facing the gigantic shipwreck. It had several orange floats tied to the bottom of the sphere, and was bobbing slightly in the waves that crashed against the shore, pushing it further and further up the beach. A long, heavy plume of black smoke belched from the top of it.
I began to descend slowly (it was windy, didn't want to risk wiping out on the landing with all those rocks), and eventually I landed softly on my hooves on the gravelly sand of the beach. I frowned, walking slowly towards the sphere, slightly afraid it might open up and attack me.
Fortunately for me, it seems that this thing was not planning on killing me anytime soon, as I arrived at the base of the pod shortly.
It was about three times as tall as me, about the height of my habitat on this island. There were several yellow-colored rungs going up the side of the pod, and the rungs were designed in the same frustrating way as that one ladder back in my habitat. I flapped my wings a bit, flying up to the top of the ladder (the winds were still high here, but not as bad as up in the air).
As I suspected, there was a hatch here. After all, why make a ladder going up here unless it was a great place to sight-see from. The hatch had a window made from glass, and was currently completely blackened with burns from the inside.
...This thing was on fire, wasn't it?
I grunted and groaned as I yanked on the yellow-coloured handle for the hatch, and eventually some locked up mechanism in the hatch snapped loose, and I was flung by my own force off the top of the pod as the hatch popped open. I landed painfully on my back on the hard sand of the beach. I frowned as I looked up at the sphere, and saw a more solid plume of smoke billow out from its opened hatch. I saw a few tongues of fire lick up from the depths of the sphere through the opened hatch.
And, to complement the mood of the fire, lightning struck on the horizon, and rain began to fall in droves as the clouds rolled on in.
I sighed. I doubted anycreature inside that thing was alive. If it was even meant for passengers. Hay, for all I know it was meant to drop cargo down and it had spontaneously caught on fire. Or hay again! Maybe it was meant to be on fire! Maybe it was an incendiary bomb that the white-metal architects had dropped on me to end my life!
I DIDN'T KNOW!!!
Hahahaahah! I didn't know at all! It didn't make any sense! There was no reason for all these things to be happening around me! No reason for these mysteries to decide I was the lucky mare to try and figure them all out! I wasn't special! I was just a washed up survivor! Why did the ship decide to come here to get shot? Who built this habitat if that cannon has been firing away for the past thousand years!? What was this stupid sphere meant to do? Was it a raft? I didn't even know if the builders of that gigantic ship even knew what a raft was!
I felt like tearing my mane out as I continued to twitch and squirm on the beach, my brain buzzing and wincing as the mysteries continued to swirl. Rain came down in droves, and the fire inside the pod turned into wisps of smoke.
Well... guess I wasn't heading back to the other island in this weather.
I calmed down eventually, taking those deep breaths my friends would tell me about. Although, it was rather hard to take a deep breath in this weather, as every time I opened my mouth I would get nailed with about a bajillion raindrops. Seriously, I thought some of these would hit me so hard they would puncture holes in me. Maybe some of them were and I was bleeding out already!
I shook myself up, realising the crabbies probably had taken over my shelter already. Wait... had I blocked up the door before I left? I didn't even remember at this point. All of the information in this day had overloaded me.
I walked over to the sphere again, realizing the fire inside had died down. I carefully flew up towards the hatch again, curling forelegs around the "ladder's" rungs to help from being blown away. Eventually I made it on top, and I felt my tail being blown in a straight line by the wind as I left the cover of the sphere. I looked down through the open gap into a dark interior.
It was blackened with soot, and several sparks rained from several gadgets and gizmos around the main cabin that I couldn't recognize. Two chairs sat against the walls, which reminded me of rollercoaster seats with their harnesses and buckles.
...one of the chairs was occupied.
My eyes popped open despite the driving needles of the rain as I spotted something harnessed into one of the seats. I couldn't see diddly squat past the rain and the blackened soot inside, so I cautiously put a hoof inside the hatch, lowering myself down into the sphere's interior.
The sounds of howling wind eventually died down as I came inside the interior of the sphere, starting up a light spell on the tip of my horn to illuminate the inside of the sphere.
Aside from the burn marks and the slight layer of water on the floor, the pod was mostly structurally intact. The interior felt similar to the white-metal construction all over the island. Except this one was... newer... and there was also a lot more fancy blinking lights and random text scrawled everywhere.
It was blatantly apparent that there was a fire that had ravaged this area, as everything connected to the floor up to the ceiling was blackened with burn damage. A murky, yellowish liquid intermixed with the rainwater spilling into the cabin, leaking from an exposed pipe of some kind. Sparks fell onto it, and a few licks of flame came from it.
Kerosene, maybe? Did that catch and light the place on fire...?
I looked to the seat that I had seen occupied. My fears and suspicions told me that no living beings were in this place, or else I would've been talked to already.
I was painfully, heartrendingly right once again.
A skeleton sat in the harness chair to my left. It was not a pony skeleton... it was... much taller. It had a long, upright barrel, a rounded, flat-faced skull, and a long pair of forelegs that ended in strange, clawed appendages that reminded me of griffon claws or diamond dog paws. They had long, slender hind legs ending in flat appendages. All in all... this thing reminded me of a tall monkey.
My hoof slammed the floor in frustration as I gazed upon the skeleton. Another dead body. This ocean wanted me to be alone so badly! Why!? Why couldn't I have just one friend!? Somepony to share my thoughts with!
I growled to myself, examining the thing the skeleton was wearing. Did I mention that? Oh, yeah right the skeleton was wearing some kind of orange and black patterned suit. Real fascinating stuff yeah.
I tried to push my frustration aside in favor of rational thought, examining the suit itself. It was a long, rubber affair, obviously built for the creature that was wearing it. It was mostly featureless aside from its design, but it did end in rather strange-looking boots, and there was some goggle-like equipment attached to the neck portion of it. The bottom half of it was very, very burnt up and crispy.
I tried to find a lace or something that kept it together, and eventually found a zip that kept it together like a... like a wetsuit that divers would use. Huh. I wonder if that was what this was meant to be...
...Nah. Who in their right mind would go swimming in these waters.
I must admit I didn't feel as much shame as I should have as I dumped the skeleton out of the rubber suit. I was rather angry at the skeleton for not surviving long enough for me to put out the fire and rescue it. Or maybe it was more just my frustrations and my wet, cold body getting to me as I began to work sloppily around the cabin of this advanced raft (the only thing it could be, as it was made for passengers.)
The suit wasn't made to fit me like Spitfire's was, but its materials might be useful. I noticed a cabinet sitting at the back of the cabin, below a bunch of displays that said meaningless things in the alien language. I curiously went over to open the cabinet, wondering if it was anything like the boxes that I had opened the first time I came to this island.
Lo and behold, that was indeed the case.
Inside were two of those Bricks of Disgusting Flavor, those rations that I had trouble stomaching. There were also two, long silver-colored cylindrical devices with red, rounded caps. I pocketed them for later, notice the water was beginning to rise in the cabin as the rain intensified outside. There were two bottles of water in here as well, and I figured that if they were anything like the water in the crates outside, they were drinkable as well.
I noticed another cabinet on the wall, one with a big red cross on the front. From experience, I had deduced that the symbol for medicine was similar for both ponies and the white-metal architects (I needed to call them something else. Perhaps now that I knew what their skeletons looked like I could give them a name).
I fondled the cabinet for a handle of some kind, only to find it was a narrow slit built into the side of it, meant to be grasped by something smaller than a hoof. A tool of some kind, maybe? Anyway, telekinesis did perfectly to wrench the cabinet's lid open.
Fortunately enough, there was another small, rectangular casing inside that held similarities to the medical kit back by the white-metal construction. I took it, looking it over.
I wondered for a moment. Despite not using magic in their construction, these white-metal people had managed to do things ponies needed magic to do. I briefly wondered if they had already found a cure to what ponies were working on thousands of years ago. Maybe it was as simple as popping some of their pills...
I shook my head, self-medicating was not a good idea generally, especially when you didn't know what the labels said. It was wiser to just use the bandages in the kits. At least I knew what they did. ...And if they weren't doing what I think they did, then I should already be dead or at least feeling some of the negative effects.
I had no comprehension of what the rest of the things around the cabin did. There was this box affixed to the wall with a red, cylindrical button-like protrusion on it and wires heading into the ceiling. It was currently spitting sparks, and hitting the button did absolutely nothing.
There was another more rounded, smooth box against the wall next to the supply cabinet, but I couldn't exactly figure out how it worked either. I pulled and tugged on what looked like a handle or a tab of some kind located in the middle, but it didn't seem to want to open up. Or maybe that wasn't the case at all, and it was just made that way.
Again, I didn't know!
There was a big display screen of some kind sitting above the cabinet. Several lines of alien text were written on it, some were colored white and some were colored red. There were also several cylinders of some kind attached next to them, a few of them sparked and buzzed as well...
However, unlike some of the other parts of this place, they reacted to me touching them with my telekinesis. In fact, they pulled out slightly on me tugging. Some more work later, and the one entire cylinder popped out from its socket and crashed into my face. ...I really needed to watch how hard I tugged on things when it came to white-metal technology.
The cylinder was about as tall as me, and had a handle on the top and bottom. Several grooves along the side revealed glowing blue... stuff.. that I couldn't exactly recognize. I put it aside, tugging out the other ones. Some of them were completely locked into place, and those were the sparky-sparky buzzy ones. The others came out. Funnily enough, when the final one came out, there was a whirring sound as the lights went off on the display and everything seemed to lose its mechanical life.
I sat there confused for a bit, before I realized and made the logical conclusion that these cylinders were involved in the sphere's mechanisms somehow. Maybe they were power sources or something.
I looked around one final time. Aside from a panel with a bunch of wires hanging out, there seemed to be nothing left that I could understand inside this sphere. The rain had leveled off into a steady beat of roaring thunder and driving rain. The place I was in was rocking slightly, and I realized it might not be the best idea to stay here forever, lest I be in this sphere if it came away from its beaching on the island.
I climbed the ladder again, using wings and magic to help me up the unintuitive design of its rungs. I forgot how painful it was until I stuck my head up out into the rain again, feeling the pounding needles of the storm thrash against me. I summoned my telekinesis, picking up the extremely heavy cells up again. I was proud to know that my magic was beginning to pool up into full force again, as I believed those cylinders only weighed half of what my magic could hold.
I struggled and stumbled up through the storm up the slopes of the island, lightning and magical glow being my only lights in the storm.
I eventually saw my habitat up ahead, still there in all its rusted glory. I bit my lip as I soldiered on towards it, the storm battering me about left and right. I remembered the quicksand sinkhole in front of my habitat just in time as I gingerly retracted my hoof from a dark, gloopy dark spot in front of my door. I ducked inside, hearing the skitters of Crabbies inside my habitat already.
I groaned, setting the cylinders down somewhere safe and taking out my knife. I stabbed, ripped and tore through the crowd of angry crabs, using telekinesis to toss them aside. I had bandages, I would survive a few scratches from them.
It seemed some of them remembered the raid on their nest from a few days ago, and skittered off once I came to reclaim my home. The others, however, were eventually beaten back manually with my knife and my magic, running away scared as some of them were stabbed and some of them were vaporized.
I dusted off my hooves, bringing my cylinders to sit as new blockades in front of the entrance into my habitat. The floor inside the large room was flooded again, of course. The rain outside was more intense than it had been before, and I sincerely hoped this was the worst storm it could muster.
I sat up on the desk in the middle of the room, slowly dripping dry. I sighed, laying my tired head back on the cold, hard top of the desk.
...I needed a better sleeping area.
I shut my eyes to try and sleep as the sound of the rain smashing into the roof consumed everything. I would go back to the Enforcement Platform tomorrow with all my stuff. I knew there I could live a lot more calmly. Less crabbies there invading the place, more shelter, no flooding...
I briefly wondered about the strange creature that had been in that sphere outside. It had been my counterparts on this world that had lead to their demise, I guess. I knew there was no I could save them or their ship (and no doubt, countless fellow species members aboard it), but I felt strangely guilty about it. Like I had aimed the gun myself.
I had not, but still...
Speaking of guns. I still had the last bit to explore on that gigantic artillery installation. The moon pool, and whatever was still docked with it. Perhaps if I had the time after setting up my camp in the black-metal structure tomorrow, I could attempt a flight towards the giant shipwreck. Maybe I was too pessimistic. It was mostly intact. There had to be beings that survived the crash.
I closed my eyes to sleep that night with that hope, the cylinders heavy enough and crowded enough to keep my door safe. I cast a noise cancelling spell as the last thing for that night, keeping the sounds of the rain away...