Crashlander
Chapter Two: Stuck
-----
Sometime later, Twilight, Fluttershy, and the Creature were sitting awkwardly around Fluttershy’s coffee table. A tea set was arranged on the table, with dainty cups placed in front of each of them. Twilight stared at the Creature. The Creature stared back at her. Fluttershy stared into her tea.
“So…,” the Creature said. His accent was only slight, but reminded Twilight of dignitaries from Germaney that had visited Celestia in Canterlot. “Where exactly are we?”
“We’re just outside Ponyville,” Twilight explained, “in Equestria.”
“Okay,” the Creature said. They sat in an awkward silence, and Twilight took the opportunity to examine him. He had dressed himself before coming down: the pants went down to mid-shin; the shirt layered over itself in front like a bathrobe, but higher up, left over right, and buttoned closed under his right forelimb; the last piece proved to be a bandolier, worn from left shoulder to right hip, with the pockets and hexagonal badge on the front and the symbols on the back. A belt was attached to it and closed around his waist, with several more pockets on it. On the left side was something that could have been a knife, and the right something Twilight didn’t recognize at all. She looked up to his face and stared into the small but sharp and inquisitive eyes that seemed to be examining her just as thoroughly.
“What are you?” Twilight asked. She blushed slightly as she realized how rude that must have sounded, and quickly corrected herself. “I mean, who are you?”
“I’m human,” he said with a gentle smile. “Redel Yanvorren, First Engineer of the First Company, Kavican Imperial Military.”
“And…,” Twilight said, “how did you get here?”
“I’m still a bit fuzzy on that.” He scratched nervously at the back of his neck. “I was running a test flight of a fighter and crashed. Oh! I need to go back to it, if that’s alright.”
“It’s not far from here,” Fluttershy said softly, still looking at her tea. “I can lead you there, Mr. Redel. That is, if you like.”
“Thank you,” he said. “Though, if you want, you can just call me Yan. Redel’s my rank, not my name.”
Fluttershy squeaked in embarrassment. Twilight put a reassuring hoof on her shoulder.
“Was just a suggestion,” Yanvorren mumbled. “Though, I would really appreciate it if you showed me to my ship.”
“Of course,” Twilight said.
-----
As they walked, Twilight kept glancing at Yanvorren. She was amazed that something could walk on two legs without a tail for balance, though she did note that he needed the shoes to protect his soft feet. He also stumbled occasionally and held a hand to his bandaged head. Fluttershy walked a few paces ahead of them, but kept silent. They had walked for about half an hour before coming to the crash site.
“That…is an ugly mess,” Yanvorren said. He was right. His crash had carved a blackened trench in the soft grass, and burrowed into a hill. The canopy from it had shattered when it landed, leaving transplast shards in a dangerous circle. Yanvorren rushed forward and quickly started examining the ship.
“How did this go into space?” Twilight asked, her natural curiosity overriding any fear.
“It was carried by a bigger ship,” Yanvorren said. He straddled the seat inside it and started poking at the console. “I was testing a new part on it when I was separated from the Dufojorr Avoyigo—that’s her name. Then there was a computer failure, then mechanical…I’d need a diagnostic lab to be able to determine exactly what went wrong.”
“How did you get separated from your…herd?” Fluttershy asked. She leaned forward and watched as the lights suddenly came to life and a soft hum reverberated from underneath the seat. Fluttershy squeaked and dived behind Twilight.
“Ha!” Yanvorren barked. “There’s my girl! I knew you wouldn’t give up like that.”
Fluttershy’s question went unanswered as his deft fingers started manipulating a set of controls in the center of the console. It squawked angrily at him until he flipped a switch—then it just screamed a high-pitched whine that set all of their teeth on edge. Twilight clenched her eyes shut and tried to cover her ears with her hooves, and the whine suddenly stopped. She looked up to find that Yanvorren had turned off the part of the console he had been working with and pulled it out. He was turning it over in his forehooves with a critical expression.
“What was that!?” Twilight demanded. Yanvorren winced.
“Intership radio,” he said. “It lets us talk to each other. If I can get it working, I should be able to call my ship and go home.”
“But you’re still injured,” Fluttershy piped in, looking up over Twilight’s back. “I’d feel just awful if I let you go before you were fully healed.”
“No offense to you, Miss Fluttershy, but my crew would have medical facilities better suited for me.” He kept poking at the different controls on the console. “I might be able to fix this—she’s a sturdy little thing, and if I can get the right tools and parts—do you hear that?”
“Hear what?” Twilight asked. She tilted her head, trying to listen for…whatever it what Yanvorren heard. He tapped at the screen in the center of the console, and a look of horror crossed his face. The low hum that started with the ship was quickly climbing to a high scream.
“Run,” he said—he grabbed the radio and vaulted himself from the little ship. “Run! Now, go! Go go GO!”
“What? What’s going on?” Twilight demanded as he shoved both of them away from the fighter and gave their rumps firm smacks.
“Explain later, RUN!!!” The scream from the ship slipped past the upper limit of pony ears as Yanvorren pushed them behind a hill. He jumped on both of them and his weight pushed them to the grass. “DOWN! And cover your head!”
The three stayed hunkered down. After nothing had happened for a whole minute, Twilight was about to round on Yanvorren for scaring Fluttershy (who was quivering in a tiny yellow and pink ball). Yanvorren tilted his head, apparently trying to hear better.
“Why did you drag us over—”
BOOM!
Twilight suddenly felt as if someone was pressing in on her ears with fully-laden carriages. Small rocks fell all over her back, and Fluttershy curled into an even tighter ball. After a few seconds that seemed like a few hours, Twilight was finally able to take stock of what happened.
“The damn thing blew up,” Yanvorren explained once the ringing in their ears had stopped. He and Twilight stood, shaking the dirt and dust that had landed on them off. Fluttershy was still cowering in the shadow of the small hill they had hidden behind. Twilight gently nudged her to stand—her grey eyes were still wide open in terror, with her wings snapped securely to her sides—and looked over the hill to where the ship had been.
Had been was the important part: all that was left was a smoking black crater fifty feet across and almost fifteen feet deep. Yanvorren cautiously stepped forward, craning his neck to look into the crater.
“Why…how…,” Twilight’s mouth froze as a thousand and one questions all tried to be asked at once. The grueling death-match ended in a triple knockout, so she settled on rushing forward and head-butting the alien roughly before shooting him a demanding expression. He looked down, his eyebrows furrowed together in a thoughtful frown.
“The microreactor went critical. It wasn’t able to put out all of the power it was generating, so it overloaded. Kablooie.”
“Where’s the wreckage?” Twilight asked, looking around for a metal shell or some components that had been thrown free.
“Vaporized,” Yanvorren said sadly. He looked down to meet Twilight’s purple eyes. “It looks like I’m stuck here for a while.