//------------------------------//
// 6 - Lithobrake 
// Story: Secrets in The Stars 
// by CommissarVulpin 
//------------------------------//

>Access database: Project_151

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>***********

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>Access file: meeting_transcript_06-07-1819.scr

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[Transcript Start]

[Riverbank] Ah, welcome, Princess. Please, make yourself comfortable.

[Princess Luna] Thank you, Riverbank. I hope I’m not taking up too much of your time.

[R] Not at all. What can I help you with?

[PL] I have a project for you.

[R] Oh? What kind of project?

[PL] An official Equestrian government project. The top secret kind.

[R] You had my curiosity, but now you have my attention.

[PL] I understand you’ve made some impressive advancements with your robots, correct?

[R] Absolutely. The Gamma-series protection robots have the latest SCS spell matrix processors and patented top-of-the line—

[PL] Spare me the marketing horseshit, please.

[R] …Of course.

[PL] (sigh) Forgive me. I’ve had a…rough night. (pause) Allow me to make a quick tangent. Do you remember the war?

[R] I don’t think there’s anypony that doesn’t, aside from the children.

[PL] Fifteen years. It’s been fifteen years since that damned war and the ponies who fought in it are still suffering.

[R] I’m not sure what you—

[PL] Dreams, Riverbank. Every night I see the nightmares of hundreds of tortured soldiers. And these aren’t the whimsical, nonsensical things that I can convince them aren’t real. They’re memories. Vivid and horrible and unending, and I can’t help them. That’s what bothers me the most, Riverbank. I can’t help them. Their minds literally refuse to believe that they’re dreaming.

[R] That sounds awful, Princess, but I’m not sure how I can help.

[PL] If there is another conflict, another war like this one – I pray to the spirits that we never see such things again, but if – I want to make sure that no creature has to suffer from it ever again. I want you to…improve your robots. Make them smarter, more autonomous. In case of war, I want them to be able to fight for us.

[R] Princess…are you saying…do you want me to make them…sentient?

[PL] Sentience? No. I simply want machines that are capable of performing soldier duties just as well as a pony. Can you do that?

[R] I’m not sure. I’d have to consult with—

[PL] Yes or no, Riverbank. Can you do it, or can’t you?

[R] …Yes. I can do it.

[PL] Good. I’ll secure funding.

[Transcript End]


***


CONNECTION FAILED.

Piper made another tick mark on her tablet and sighed. “That’s the last one.”

She was about to call Rosette up to the control tower to confirm that yes, the entire lunar satellite network was offline, but she was interrupted by a chirp from the central volumetric display. She wheeled her chair over to it to see that three ships had just crossed into Maulwurf’s sensor range, flying in close formation. It wasn’t unusual for ships to fly this way, but she had never seen it out here, mostly because there was no need for that many ships to come or go at once. The shuttles’ transponders had them listed as ESL014, ESL015, and ESL016, but there were no such vessels on her list of flight plans.

Since the satellite network was down, Piper knew that they wouldn’t have contact with Moon Surface Control, so they’d have no idea which frequency to use to talk with the Maulwurf. She set up the radio to send out a broad-frequency hail.

“ESL vessels, please contact Maulwurf tower on one-two-one-decimal-five.”

She listened closely on her headset for the shuttle pilots’ response, but none came. They continued flying straight towards the station.

“ESL vessels, you are approaching restricted flyspace. Please contact Maulwurf tower on one-two-one-decimal-five or divert your course.”

There was no response, and no diversion from the ships. She hailed them again with a more forceful message.

“Unkown vessels! You are trespassing in restricted LMC flyspace with an unregistered flight plan. Divert your course immediately or you will be in violation of Equestrian spaceflight regulations!”

The ships still did not respond or change course at all. Now Piper was getting concerned. She sent another message to Rosette, who arrived shortly.

“Yes? What is it?”

“First of all, I finished trying to connect to the communications satellites, and it confirms what I suspected: the entire network is down. But that’s not why I called you.”

Rosette seemed to sense Piper’s unease and frowned curiously. “Oh?”

Piper motioned to the volumetric display. “There are three unregistered ships approaching the station. I’ve sent broad-frequency hails asking them to open communications or divert course, but they aren’t responding.”

Rosette said nothing at first, peering out the windows at the slowly-brightening blue dot on the horizon.

“What kind of vessels are they?” she said.

“Transponders identify them as long-range cargo shuttles, small civilian models.”

“Keep an eye on their course. If they try to land, contact Pad Control and lock down the landing pad airlocks. I’ll be in my office if you need me.”

Once Rosette had left, Piper did as instructed. She watched the shuttles as they grew closer, the single blue dot resolving into three. The light from their engines flared as the shuttles slowed down, and they moved to position themselves above the landing pads.

Piper’s heart leapt into her throat as she sent an urgent call to Pad Control.

“This is Pad Control.”

“Lock down all landing pad elevators and airlocks, now! Orders from the director!”

“What? Why?”

“Just do it! These shuttles are trespassing and will not respond to hails. Don’t let them in!”

“Okay, okay, keep your horseshoes on. There, landing pads one through four, and airlocks A5 and A6 are locked down. Will you please explain what’s going on?”

Right at that moment, Piper’s console lit up with a message from Rosette’s office.

“Sorry, no time. Talk to Rosette.”

She closed the channel with Pad Control without giving them a chance to respond, and opened Rosette’s call.

“Yes?”

“Come down to the control room.”

“Uh, yeah, of course.”

In the control room, Rosette and most of the Control Section personnel had their eyes glued to the central monitors at the head of the room, which had the feeds from the landing pad security cameras patched in. Plainly visible were the invading shuttles, parked on three of the landing pads. Normally the pads would serve as elevators, lowering the shuttles into a pressurized hangar, but with Rosette’s command they were not moving.

It was a good call to make, Piper realized, as she saw that some of the ponies in space suits milling around the shuttles were wielding weapons. The nervous murmurs sweeping through the group quickly turned to panicked ones as they all realized at once what was happening. The Maulwurf was under attack, and the foremost question on everypony’s lips seemed to be “Why?” To Piper, though, it made perfect sense. In any conflict, attacking the enemy’s resources was just as important, if not more so, than its troops. And if an enemy of Equestria wished to cripple its space-borne infrastructure, the moon was the perfect place to do it. Maulwurf alone supplied almost half of the raw materials going to the shipyards and factories around Starshine City. Piper suddenly realized in horror that the communications dropout probably hadn’t been a coincidence. Nopony who could provide help would know what had happened until it was too late.

In her mind, the most important question was “Who?” She wasn’t well-versed in geopolitics, but she didn’t think Equestria had that tense of a relationship with any other nations, except maybe the griffins. The last war had been with some crazy cultists, but they had been defeated…hadn’t they?

The murmurs turned to cries of alarm as the monitor showed that the soldiers were using beam saws to slice their way through one of the hull airlocks adjacent to the shuttle elevators. At the rate they were going, it would only take a few more minutes until they were through.

With a snort, Rosette turned on her hoof and made for her office. She returned wielding a pistol in her magic. Piper had no idea where she had gotten it; Maulwurf security personnel didn’t carry firearms, and getting guns onto the moon at all was extremely difficult. Before Piper could ask Rosette why she had it, the older mare cleared her throat.

“Listen up!” She commanded in a voice that made everypony drop silent and turn to look at her. Most of them were shocked upon seeing the director holding a gun, while a few were unsurprised. All of them were looking at her like a foal looks up at her mother when she’s unsure of what to do. One could have heard a pin drop.

“I don’t know who these ponies are or what they want,” she announced. “But right now they are forcefully invading a civilian station, and I’m going to do everything I can to protect its people.”

She turned to the pony nearest the console that handled internal communications. “Send out the general alarm. Abandon station.”

The control room filled with pulsing red lights as an alarm sounded over the intercom, interrupted by a pre-recorded message urging all aboard to make their way to the lifeboats in an orderly fashion.

“Anypony who wants to abandon station, please feel free to do so,” Rosette continued. She pointed to the security feed, where the soldiers had breached the outer airlock door and were working on the inner. “But I’m staying. If they take Control Section, the whole station is lost, and I’m not going down without a fight.”

A rough dozen ponies in the group cheered and began scavenging for anything they could use as weapons, while the rest started making their way toward the exit with grim expressions. Piper moved to stay with Rosette, but the older mare put a hoof on her shoulder.

“Piper, there is something I need you to do for me.”

Piper looked into her gold eyes and nodded. Rosette pointed out the exit door.

“Go with them. Keep them organized and calm. I think your talent would make you invaluable to them right now, given the circumstances.”

Piper couldn’t help craning her neck to look at her own cutie mark – a mouse and a flute.

“You can manage and organize ponies better than anyone I know…even though you frequently fall asleep at your desk,” she finished with a wink.

Piper gulped and nodded. The concern with her new responsibility overpowered the instinct to flinch at the director’s jab. She worked her way to the front of the group and began addressing them in a voice that was forceful, but not loud; commanding, but not demanding.

“Alright everypony, this way. You all know as well as I do that these corridors are a maze, and we’re all going to get to the escape pods a lot faster if we’re calm and organized. Double file behind me, and no pushing!”


***


Dr. Needle and the other ponies (and zebra) seated together in Haven’s bar in the Maulwurf’s atrium continued to chat with each other until after the station entered night mode. Since he had been off-shift since he took Spring Bloom on her tour, he wasn’t worried about getting back to Medical Section with any urgency. If anything important came up, they’d contact him directly, anyway.

It had been awhile since he’d socialized like this. Usually after his shifts he would stay late, finishing paperwork in his office, or he’d just go back to his dormitory if he wasn’t busy. He was fortunate enough to have been assigned one of the larger living quarters, complete with its own bathroom, so spending his evenings in there was actually fairly relaxing. He’d share it with someone else if he could; after seeing the quarters that most of the other staff had to put up with, he was almost embarrassed at having so much space to himself.

Spring looked up from her seat and seemed to just notice that the lights in the atrium had dimmed, and that most of the ponies milling around had left.

“Wow, what time is it?” she asked.

Hex Key twisted around to look at the clock above the bar. “About seven.”

Spring slipped out of the booth and regarded Zuri and Hex with a smile. “Well, it was very nice to meet you both, but I think I should probably head back. I hope I get the chance to—”

Without warning, the dimmed lights in the Atrium suddenly slammed back on, an angry red instead of their usual gentle white. Simultaneously, an alarm began to sound from the overhead speakers, followed by a recorded stallion’s voice.

“This is a General Alarm. Abandon station. All personnel please make your way to the nearest escape pod in an orderly fashion.”

The occupants of the booth, Needle included, looked around in alarm.

“What’s going on?” Spring asked, her voice edged with fear.

“I don’t know,” Hex Key replied. “They sometimes do General Alarm drills, but never at night, and never an Abandon Station alarm.”

Needle leaned out of the booth to look out into the Atrium, and saw that it was beginning to fill with a steadily-thickening throng of ponies, all making their way in the direction of the escape pods.

“I don’t think this is a drill,” he said.

“I didn’t know this place even had escape pods,” Zuri said, as their small group left the bar to join the herd outside, with Haven and the other patrons close behind.

“Calling them ‘escape pods’ is a little generous,” Hex explained. “They’re more like…miniature inflatable shelters, designed to support a couple dozen ponies outside the station for about a day, until help can arrive.”

“Why would we need to abandon the station at all?” Spring asked.

Hex Key frowned. “I’m not sure. There’s nothing onboard that could explode, at least not enough to endanger the whole station. There’s the possibility of a structural collapse I suppose, but if that were happening, trust me, you’d know. The only other thing I can think of is a hull breach, but we should have heard a depressurization alarm, and they haven’t told us to find emergency oxygen gear.” He shook his head. “Something about this doesn’t feel right.”

It was hard to imagine just how many ponies lived aboard the Maulwurf, but it was painfully obvious now that a significant fraction of them were all gathered in one place. The Atrium served as a central hub of sorts, and as a result most of the crew was forced to walk through it on their way to the escape pods. The crowd had grown to the point where there was little room to move around, and Needle and the others found themselves shuffled towards the large exterior windows.

He heard a muffled thump from somewhere beneath him. Somepony shouted, “Look!” and he turned to spot some motion outside the windows. Sailing away from the station was a large white mass, looking like a wad of blankets bundled into a tetrahedron. It arced gracefully for a few seconds, until at the apex of its flight its surface suddenly puffed up with large airbags. The balloons cushioned it as it impacted the lunar surface and bounced several times, staining the white bags grey with moon dust, before finally rolling to a stop. The airbags on its surface deflated, then three triangular ‘petals’ on the outside of structure unfolded, rolling it over into an orientation that Needle assumed was the right way up. The center consisted of a white dome-like structure, and the inner surface of the ‘petals’ inflated into semi-cylindrical huts that branched off from it. All in all, it made a pretty tidy little shelter, even if the launch process looks less than pleasant.

Zuri echoed his thoughts with an intake of breath through her teeth. “Ooh, I hope they were strapped in for that.”

Soon, several more thumps were heard, followed by the sight of more escape pods careening away from the station. The four of them continued to follow the crowd, occasionally hearing the launch of more pods. Needle couldn’t help thinking that this was a really inefficient way to usher the station’s crew to safety; if there were a more pressing emergency, getting all the pods launched in a timely manner would be nearly impossible.

Just as quickly as they had started, the alarms stopped and the lights returned to normal.

“What the—” Needle began to say, until he was interrupted by a voice over the intercom.

“Mares and gentlecolts, we apologize for the inconvenience, but the Mole… Mulberry… what the fuck is this place called? Maulwurf! The Maulwurf is now under new management. Please return to your quarters, and don’t try anything stupid like your former friends in the control room. All the airlocks and escape pods are sealed, and my associates will be ensuring that there’s no funny business. Oh! And I’ll be using this place’s cameras to keep an eye on you, so be good little ponies and no one has to die. Okay? Great!”

Everypony gathered in the Atrium was left reeling from the announcement. After a few seconds of stunned silence, Needle heard frightened whispers from the ponies around him.

“Control room? What’s he talking about?”

“What’s going on? Are we under attack!?”

“I don’t want to die!”

The crowd started moving around, ponies trying to push their way in multiple directions, until another voice was heard from above.

“Hey! Listen up! You are all confined to quarters.”

Needle looked up to see a group of ponies wearing tactical barding gathered behind the railing of the second-floor mezzanine. And they all had guns.

“Go back to your rooms. That is not a suggestion!” The middle one announced, horn glowing with a voice-amplification spell. One of the ponies next to him whispered something in his ear. “Please and thank you, and all that shit,” he finished.

The crowd quickly moved to comply, filtering back toward Hab Section while talking in hushed whispers. Needle suddenly found himself being swept along, and at risk of being separated from the others.

“We need to get out of here,” he heard Hex Key say from beside him.

Needle nodded. “We can all use my room. It’s big enough for the four of us—”

“No, that’s not what I meant,” he interrupted. “I think I know a way to get us off this station. We need to get back to Starshine City and tell everypony what’s going on!”

“What? You can go gallivanting around and get yourself shot, but I’m—”

“Hey, what are you guys talking about?” Zuri cut in from his other side.

“I’m working on a plan to get us out of here,” Hex said.

“Really? Is it dangerous?”

“Now wait just a minute!” Needle spoke up before anyone else could break in. “I want all of us to talk about – where’s Spring?”

“Behind you,” she answered from behind him.

“Alright. We need to go somewhere and talk things out in private.”

“Follow me,” Hex Key said, and started carefully pushing his way through the crowd to one side. Needle didn’t see any other choice but to follow him, and he made sure he didn’t lose sight of Spring or Zuri as he did so. Soon they reached a side door off one corner of the Atrium, bearing a keypad lock and a sign that read, “Authorized Personnel Only.” Hex punched in the code and pushed the door open, then closed it behind him when they were all through.

The room was a small maintenance closet, stocked with tools and cleaning supplies. Toward the far end of the room, a ship’s ladder descended into the bowels of the station.

“Okay, what’s this I hear about a plan to escape?” Spring began.

“Ohh, no,” Needle warned before any of the others could butt in. “You are in no shape to be anywhere except a hospital bed. As your doctor, I strongly—”

“I feel fine, and frankly I’ve been counting the days until I can get out of here. I’m sick of the moon and I’m sick of space. You’re not going to drag me back to Medical and cuff me to the bed, are you?”

“Well no, of course I’m not—”

“Then I don’t see a problem. If anything, maybe you should come along and make sure I don’t overexert myself, hm?”

It was obvious he wasn’t going to win this argument, so he just made a frustrated sigh.

“Maybe we should put it to a vote?” Zuri suggested.

“I’d like to know a little bit more about this plan before I agree to it,” Needle said.

“I’m not going to go…what was that word you used?” said Hex.

“Gallivanting.”

“I’m not going to go ‘gallivanting’ around like you said, not with ponies with guns outside. Fortunately, you can get just about anywhere you need to go by using the maintenance tunnels.” He pointed with a blue-grey wing to the steep staircase at the back of the room. “I’m willing to bet they haven’t made it down there yet, and even if they have, I know that place like my own feathers.”

“What about the cameras?” Spring asked.

Hex gave a small smile. “Old Grease Stain didn’t like Rosette spying on us all the time, so he got one of the techs to program a loop into the cameras. They won’t see us down there.”

“Okay, great,” Needle said exasperatedly. “So what do we do once we’re down there?”

“Well, they locked out all the escape pods, but those wouldn’t be very useful for escape anyway. I don't know about you, but I’d rather not hoof it all the way to Starshine. There’s no way we’re stealing whatever ships the soldiers used to get here, either.”

Needle was growing impatient. “Could you skip to the end, please?”

“I’m getting there! There’s a little utility ship that we use to carry tools and supplies for EVA work. It’s not pressurized, so we’ll have to wear space suits the whole time, but it should have enough power to get us to the city.”

Nopony seemed to have any objections. Even Needle thought the plan had a chance of working.

“To tell the truth, it’s something I thought of less than five minutes ago,” Hex Key continued. “There are a lot of assumptions, and you know what they say – ‘No plan survives first contact with the enemy.’ So what do you think?”

“If we can get to Starshine City and warn them, we could save the station,” Zuri thought out loud. “They might even be able to get the Princesses to send some soldiers!”

The others started nodding, then they all turned to look at Needle.

“What? Why are you all looking at me like that?”

“You wanted to hear the plan before you agreed to it,” Spring said.

Needle signed. “All right. From where I’m standing, yes, it seems like the best option. But! I’m going to keep an eye on you, because even if you feel fine, you haven’t finished healing yet.”

With the plan agreed to, or at least compromised on, the four of them descended single-file down the ship’s ladder into the labyrinth of maintenance tunnels that crisscrossed the underbelly of the station. Hey Key took the lead, stopping at intersections to read signs posted on the walls. Needle couldn’t make heads or tails of the arcane sequences of letters and numbers, but they seemingly made sense to their guide, who always confidently chose the next direction after reading them.

The corridors were invariably claustrophobic, with barely enough room for the four of them to walk single-file. Occasionally a pipe or similar would protrude from the ceiling enough for Hex Key to warn them all to duck, to avoid smacking heads or horns into unyielding steel. The air was suffused with a pervasive low-frequency hum that was felt as much as heard. After they had navigated the warrens of ducts and conduits for several minutes, the hum suddenly died away. Hex stopped in his tracks.

“They’ve shut down the traction motors,” he said quietly. “Maulwurf has stopped moving.”

Hex shook his head as if dislodging a thought, then continued down the corridor. He eventually led them to what appeared to be a headquarters of sorts for the station’s maintenance operations. There were a hoof-ful of offices and a caged-in area filled with tools. The maintenance personnel had done their best to personalize the space and make it almost cozy, including the addition of a calendar whose images were most certainly not safe for work.

Hex headed straight into one of the offices and returned with a large key ring in his mouth. He unlocked the tool crib and started loading up a belt with tools, some of which Needle could only guess the purpose of.

“I don’t know if I’m going to need all of these,” he said as he worked, “But it’s better to be prepared.”

The sound of a loud clang echoing down one of the tunnels outside the maintenance offices caught everypony’s attention, and they all spun around to look.

“Somepony’s here,” Hex said, just above a whisper. He bent down and picked up a large wrench in his mouth, wielding it like a club. The others did the same, choosing weapons of their own. Needle decided to follow suit, choosing a weighty-looking pipe and holding it up with his magic.

With wordless coordination, they all spread out in different directions, slowly creeping towards the nearest corridor and carefully peering around corners. As Needle slowly advanced down the corridor, he heard the clip-clop of hooves coming his way. In the distance, he spotted a pony wearing tactical barding in the distance. He quickly retreated behind the corner, took a deep breath, and readied his pipe. He waited until the hoofsteps were almost upon him, then swung the pipe around with as much force as he could muster.

He felt it connect with a meaty crack, and heard the sound of somepony crumpling to the floor. To his surprise, he also saw a flash of green light from around the corner. He took a tentative look, and was shocked to see an insectoid form sprawled across the deck. Its carapace was a pale blue-green, two delicate wings sprouted from behind shells on its back, and a curved horn sat atop its head. It was also wearing a tactical vest, which seemed entirely out of place.

Needle heard the others coming up behind him, having heard the commotion.

“Needle, are you alright?”

“What is that?”

“It’s a changeling!”

“Should we tie it up?”

“Are we…are we being invaded by changelings!?”

Their words faded into the background as Needle realized what he had done. His butt hit the floor and he let the pipe fall to the deck with a clatter.

“Celestia forgive me,” he muttered. “I’ve broken my oath! I’ve killed someone!”

“It’s not dead,” he heard Zuri say.

“What?”

“Look!”

He looked up to see that, indeed, the changeling was stirring. It pressed a hoof to its forehead with a groan, and then opened its eyes; insectoid compound eyes that were gold in color. His friends kept their weapons at the ready.

“Needle Prick?” it said.

“Who are you? How do you know my name?”

The changeling struggled to its hooves, keeping one pressed against its head, where Needle could see that a painful-looking welt was beginning to form. He felt a pang of guilt upon seeing it. The changeling steadied itself by leaning against the bulkhead.

“Maybe this will explain some things,” it said, then its body was suddenly engulfed in green flames. Needle and the others instinctively took a step back, even though there was no heat. When the flames died out, a familiar burgundy-coated unicorn was left standing there. After a few seconds the mare made a grimace and clutched her head, and with another blast of green fire the changeling was back.

“Rosette?” Spring breathed.

“What have you done with the director?” Needle accused. He saw Hex Key readying his wrench again out of the corner of his eye.

The changeling frowned. “I am Rosette, you idiot!”

Needle narrowed his eyes. “Prove it. Tell me something only she would know.”

The changeling Rosette rolled her eyes, a move that she seemed to immediately regret with a wince. “You like to sleep with a stuffed chimera named—”

“Alright, alright! That’s enough! I believe you,” he shouted, waving his hooves in front of his face. “But that means…”

If he hadn’t already been sitting, Needle would have fallen on his rump. This revelation seemed to shock him more than armed ponies invading the station. He had dated Rosette for almost a year and he had no idea. In a way, though, he wasn’t too surprised; he could never shake the feeling that she was hiding something from him.

“Are you saying that the director of the station has been a changeling this whole time?” Spring asked. Then she added, carefully, “That’s not bad, is it?”

Zuri shook her head. “No, just a little unexpected. Well, maybe more than a little. Changelings are really rare; some people thought they were extinct.”

“Why the disguise?” Needle asked after managing to get his mental hooves under him again.

“You have no idea what it’s like to be a changeling nowadays,” Rosette explained. “You think that just because Princess Purple-Smart wrote a decree three hundred years ago, that everything would be sunshine and rainbows? Half the ponies I’ve met want to see me in a glue trap, and other half want to stick me in an endangered species preserve. I just wanted to be normal!” She stomped a hoof in frustration. “But I didn’t come here to talk about my life story.”

“Wait a minute,” Hex Key said. “You were in Control Section, right? Didn’t those soldiers…you know…?”


Rosette hung her head. “I was a fool. There were ten of us, armed with fire extinguishers and staplers, against forty soldiers with assault rifles. I took out a few, but I only had one magazine for my pistol. We didn’t stand a chance. I barely made it out of there alive, and only because I was able to disguise myself as one of the soldiers.”

She clenched her eyes shut and took a shaky breath. Needle thought he saw a tear fall to the deck.

“Those ponies…they looked up to me, they trusted me to lead them, and I led them to their death!” She stomped her hoof again. “But I saw you four down here, and I know what you’re trying to do. I’m going to help you in any way I can.”

“How did you know we were here?” Hex asked. “The cameras—”

Rosette gave a wry chuckle. “Oh, I knew all about Grease Stain’s little camera trick. I let him think he got away with it because he does good work. You’re lucky I saw you first and cut the feed before those goons spotted you.”


***


The utility ship that Hex Key had spoken about wasn’t very far from the maintenance offices. It was stored in a small hangar, surrounded by other large pieces of maintenance equipment. The name Toybox was crudely stenciled on the side in white paint. Hex walked up to it and patted the hull fondly.

“She may not look like much, but Toybox here hasn’t let us down yet.”

In Needle’s opinion, “may not look like much” was being somewhat generous. Superficially it resembled a space-borne pickup truck, with room for four occupants in the front and an open cargo area at the back. The cockpit wasn’t enclosed at all, merely being enveloped by a roll-cage-like framework of metal tubing. Propulsion was provided by a set of kinetic thrusters mounted to the underside, between the landing skids. They looked like they could be swiveled to provide thrust in any direction. Overall, it appeared to be quite a nimble little ship, if ill-suited for the journey ahead of them.

A curse tore Needle’s attention away from inspecting the ship, to where Hex Key and Rosette stood at the console by the large doors that took up one wall of the hangar.

“What’s wrong?”

Hex made a frustrated noise. “I was hoping to use Grease Stain’s administrative access to bypass the security lockdown, but I can’t. His master key doesn’t work.”

“Let me try,” Rosette said and began tapping at the console. She, too, seemed to meet with failure, judging by the irritated stomp of her rear hoof.

“Damn them! They’ve disabled system access from anywhere except the control room.”

“So what does that mean?”

“It means we can’t get these doors open, and we can’t get Toybox outside,” Hex said. “Sorry guys, but it looks like we’re stuck.”

“Not quite,” Rosette said thoughtfully. “Every airlock is equipped with a manual override, to keep anyone from being caught outside. If we can get to it, we can force the airlock to cycle.”

The news didn’t cheer up Hex at all. “Yeah, I know that. But the manual override is mounted on the outside. It doesn’t help us at all if we can’t get to it!”

By that time, Zuri had wandered over. “Rosette, couldn’t you just disguise yourself as one of the soldiers and talk your way out of the station?”

Rosette shook her head. “It takes some concentration to maintain a different form, and with this headache that Dr. Prick gave me, I don’t want to risk my disguise failing at the wrong time.”

“Wait…we’ve slept together…” Needle said slowly. He tried to avoid shuddering at the thought, mostly successfully.

Rosette cocked an eyebrow. “Yes, sleeping is one thing, but getting brained with a pipe is another matter entirely. But I’d rather focus on our current situation than my relationships.”

Needle turned away as the three began discussing various schemes to get a pony outside the station. He saw that Spring was still standing by Toybox, staring at the small ship.

“Spring?” he called to her.

“How far is it to Starshine City?” she asked, her voice small. She didn’t look away from the ship.

He didn’t know the answer to that, but he could make an educated guess. “About fifteen hundred kilometers, I think.”

“And we’re going all the way there…in that?”

“Yes, unfortunately.”

“And we need to wear space suits the whole time?”

“Yes.”

The bravado she had been showing earlier evaporated in almost an instant. She swallowed and took a deep breath. Needle wasn’t sure what to say. He could understand her trepidation; the last time she had been in a small craft on the lunar surface, it had failed catastrophically. Then, the space suit she relied on had been punctured, and she had almost died. And it wasn’t some old memory, either – from her perspective, it had been less than a week ago.

He wasn’t well versed in the art of cheering ponies up, so the only thing he could think of was to give her a hug.

Once they broke the embrace, she gave him an appreciative look before turning towards the group standing around the door control console. Just then Zuri gave a quiet suggestion to the other two.

“What about the emergency coolant dump?”

Hex and Rosette both looked at her, then a smile crept up Hex’s face. “Of course! That’s perfect!”

“The emergency what?” Spring asked.

“The emergency coolant dump,” Hex explained. “Every system on Maulwurf that generates heat is cooled with a central loop of cooling oil, which runs to an array of radiators that pass the heat out into space. In an emergency, the oil reservoirs can be dumped overboard if the radiators can’t keep up and it gets too hot. I’ve seen the purge ports, they’re definitely large enough for a pony to fit through.”

“But how do we trigger it?” Zuri asked.

“Well, if I short some of the temperature sensors on the traction motors, I can trick the system into giving a critical overheat alarm. Then we just have to hope that the soldiers in the control room trigger an emergency dump.”

“So what do we have to do?”

Hex Key began to pace. “Okay, here’s the plan,” he said after a few moments of thought. “Somepony is going to have to go into the coolant reservoir. I’ll have to use one of these keys to open it up. Once they’re in, I’ll go down to the traction motors and send a faulty temperature signal. If the control room triggers an emergency dump, whoever is swimming in the reservoir will get…flushed out, and can make their way to the hangar airlock. They can cycle it from outside while I pilot Toybox through.

“The only thing left to figure out is who gets to be flushed,” he finished with a grimace.

Needle was incredulous. Everypony glanced around awkwardly at each other for several seconds; no one wanted to volunteer. He heard Spring take a deep breath from beside him, and despite the ludicrous plan, he had to act. There was no way he was going to let her subject herself to something like that, and he wasn’t going to talk her out of it once she’d made up her mind. So he did the only thing he could think of.

“I’ll do it,” he said.

Spring had opened her mouth to speak, and now she was regarding him with a surprised expression without closing it. Either Hex Key didn’t notice the exchange, or he decided not to say anything about it. “Alright, let’s get you fitted into a suit.”

There was a rack of space suits in various sizes against the wall. It seemed like they would be stealing someone else’s suit, since the unicorn suit Hex picked out had the name ‘Verdigris’ printed on the helmet.

“Who’s Verdigris?”

“She’s an EVA tech, and one of the best in my opinion. I’ve seen her do repair jobs in half the time as some of the other workers, and she’s not sloppy about it either. She’s also a damn good artist.”

Hex pointed to another helmet on the rack that had been painted with an image of a beautiful mare, looking backwards at the viewer with a sultry expression. Her cutie mark was an eight ball from a billiard table, rendered large enough that the edge of the ball was provided by the curve of the mare’s rump. Her tail was lifted seductively, and a looping banner beneath her read ‘Eight-Ball’ in gothic script.

Needle had never had to wear a space suit before, and he didn’t think they’d be so uncomfortable. It was tight around the joints and didn’t offer much freedom of movement, and he could feel where certain spots would start to chafe if he wore it for too long. As soon as the helmet was slipped over his head, his nose began to itch. He immediately satisfied the urge once the helmet came off again.

“That seems to fit well enough,” Hex said with a satisfied nod. “Come with me.”

Needle followed him as he left the hangar, and he heard the others wishing him good luck as he passed. Was this how the spacecraft pilots of old felt as they walked along the gantry to their rocket, towards unknown dangers and possible harm? He didn’t feel like pilot material; he was nervous, stiff, and felt like he had to pee. That was an urge he’d have to wait on.

After another journey through the station’s steel catacombs, they arrived at an unassuming hatch set into the floor of a small alcove. A sign on the bulkhead identified it as THERMAL OIL RESERVOIR A – INSPECTION HATCH 06. Another sign warned: DANGER – CONFINED SPACE – AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

Hex Key used his key ring to unlock the hatch, and pulled it open with a teeth-rattling squeal. Needle looked down into the black square, and could barely make out the surface of the coolant oil somewhere below.

“Thanks for doing this,” Hex said. “I won’t lie, I have no idea what it’s going to be like, but it’s probably not going to be pleasant. There will be three drains in the floor. Once the emergency dump starts, make sure you drop into one of them before all the fluid drains away, or the valves will close and you’ll be stuck in there.”

“How will I know when it starts draining?” Needle asked.

Hex gave a chuckle. “Trust me, you’ll know.”

He helped Needle put his helmet back on, then waited as the HUD projected on the inside of the helmet’s visor powered up. It showed that all seals were intact and that the suit’s pressure was stable, so Needle took a steadying breath and started to climb down into the hatch.

“Once you get outside, look for airlock C5. The purge ports are all on the same side, so you shouldn’t have to walk too far. When you find it, use the control panel next to it to open the inner door. Wait five minutes for us to get Toybox inside, then close the inner door, depressurize the airlock, and open the outer door. We’ll pick you up outside.”

Needle nodded. “See you on the other side.”

“Oh, hang on a second,” Hex said before Needle got too far in. “You’ll need this.”

He pulled a small towel out of his tool belt and stuffed it into the breast pocket of Needle’s suit.

“What is it?”

“It’s a microfiber cloth. Really good for cleaning up moon dust. I think it’ll come in handy.”

After nodding his thanks, Needle lowered himself the rest of the way through the hatch into the darkness beneath him, until he was hanging on only by the ladder that was welded to the inside of the tank. Another loud squeal and a clang echoed through the tank as Hex shut and locked the hatch above him.

Needle was now in pitch blackness and utter silence. He wasn’t claustrophobic, agoraphobic, or even nyctophobic, but he was fairly certain that there was a word for the fear of an oppressive black void with no way to see – wait. He reached up and tapped the button to switch on his helmet-mounted lamp. It cast a tight cone of white light ahead of him, and he could finally make out his surroundings.

The reservoir wasn’t as cavernous as Needle had imagined it, but it was still quite a large space. He could see several pipes protruding from the ceiling above him, pouring a steady supply of coolant back into the reservoir from the machines that used it. He could also see other ladders along the walls, leading up to other hatches.

The surface of the oil was only about a meter below him. With some muttered words of reassurance, Needle pushed off and performed a less-than-graceful flop into the liquid. After righting himself, he actually found it quite easy to stay afloat; he barely needed to tread water at all. He tried dunking his head beneath the surface (after instinctively holding his breath, for which he felt foolish), but his light couldn’t penetrate the oil to see to the bottom.

Needle floated around for a while, practicing his swimming in the strange liquid. The clock on his suit’s HUD ticked away for the better part of half an hour, until he thought he heard an alarm coming from somewhere above him. The next sound he heard was a series of mechanical slamming noises as, one by one, all the inlet pipes feeding into the reservoir had their flows cut off. Next, he felt a strange vibration through the oil, and ripples began to form on the surface. It didn’t feel like he was dropping, but as he watched, another rung on all the ladders breached the surface. The level of the liquid was definitely falling. He didn’t know where to position himself to fall into one of the drains, so he swam to about the center of the reservoir. He also found himself pondering the events in his life that led to him even wanting to get sucked down a drain.

With a metallic groan, the coolant level began dropping noticeably faster. Needle expected whirlpools or something to form, but there was no indication of where the drains were until he felt a current pulling him towards a wall. He let himself be dragged along, and suddenly he felt his hooves touch the floor of the tank. The bottom was slanted towards one side, and he pushed himself towards the deeper end to keep himself afloat. The undercurrent he was feeling on his legs increased substantially as he neared the wall, and he was just able to feel the bottom drop away from him before he was pulled beneath the surface with a stomach-churning lurch.

There was no sense of direction in the pipe, no way to tell which way he was facing or even which way was up. Needle was simply at the mercy of the flow as he tumbled, his legs and head repeatedly bashing against the sides of the pipe. He could do nothing but close his eyes and try not to be sick inside the suit. Just as he was wondering when it would end, the liquid, the noise, and even the gravity disappeared. He opened his eyes and was struck by a bout of nausea as his brain tried to reconcile and coordinate the signals between his eyes and his inner ear. He had just enough time to realize that he was plummeting towards the ground before he smashed into it, sending up a cloud of dust and oil droplets as he bounced. He tumbled and rolled a few more times before finally, mercifully, coming to a stop.

His suit’s HUD indicated that it hadn’t suffered any breaches, so he allowed himself to lay there on his back for a while. He felt queasy and his whole body was aching from where it had been banged around inside the drain pipe.

“Fuck.”

When Needle had caught his breath and his stomach had settled down a bit, he rolled over and pushed himself stiffly to his hooves. He looked down to see that the coolant and regolith had mixed to form a sticky grey mud that coated his suit from tip to tail, including his visor. He was about to wipe an equally filthy foreleg across it, when he remembered the cloth that Hex had given him. He pulled it out and swept it across his visor, and the mud was instantly collected onto the once white cloth. He could now see well enough to look around and get his bearings.

It was difficult to see in the darkness, and a few tests of his helmet lamp confirmed that it was broken. The light given by Maulwurf’s exterior floodlights were just enough to see that he was standing in the middle of a large puddle of coolant, not far from where the station’s huge caterpillar tracks were sunk into the soil. This close, the Maulwurf was absolutely massive; he had to look almost straight up to see the blinking lights on the traffic control tower.

“Alright, Needle Prick. You can do this. Airlock C5,” he said to himself. He stretched out his aching and bruised limbs; he was definitely going to feel sore in the morning.

Needle knew that the airlocks were lettered depending on where they were on the station. The “A” airlocks were located on the upper superstructure, such as the ones that opened onto the landing pads. The “B” airlocks were midlevel, usually used for maintenance purposes. And the “C” airlocks were on ground level, likewise only used for maintenance, or the occasional surveying group. They were all dotted with blinking yellow lights to allow them to be located in the dark, and he spotted one on the hull just behind the giant caterpillar tracks.

Needle started towards it – and almost fell on his face. Walking in such reduced gravity was going to take some getting used to, it would seem. With a little experimentation, he found that the easiest way to move forward was by hopping, but he had to carefully plan his movements in advance. Despite the reduced weight, his momentum was the same, so stopping or changing direction too quickly would result in him toppling over.

He hopped his way over to the airlock, and as he approached, he could make out “C1” stenciled on the door in cracked, sun-bleached paint. A strange emotion overtook him when he realized why that number was familiar: this was the airlock Spring Bloom had appeared in, just before he was called to give her medical attention. This was where it all started. He closed his eyes and shook his head to drive away the sensation. There were more important things to do right now than feeling nostalgic.

Needle also knew that the airlocks were numbered sequentially, but he didn’t know which direction they were numbered in. If he had a coin, he would have flipped it, but he had to make do by simply choosing a direction. He chose to go right. That turned out to be the correct choice, as the next door was marked “C2”. He followed along the hull in the same direction, spotting C3 and C4 as well. Finally, he came to a much larger door marked “C5”.

“Gotcha,” he said by way of celebration, and walked up to the control panel mounted to the hull beside the door. It took him a bit to figure out the controls; the default function looked like it would open the outer door first, which would be good for somepony trying to get in, but not what he needed to do. He had to poke around on the panel’s touchscreen until he found the function he wanted. He tapped the button to open the inner door, and although he couldn’t hear it, he could feel the vibrations by pressing a hoof against the outer door. Next came the waiting. Needle noted the time on his suit HUD’s clock, and sat down in the grey dirt to give Hex and the others enough time to load Toybox into the airlock.

To pass the time he looked out at the stars, and found them beautiful in a cold, distant sort of way. He had never really been able to see the stars from inside the Maulwurf, and at this moment he lamented that fact a little. He knew that the stars out there were all gargantuan spheres of light and heat, despite how faint and small they looked from here. Just like the one that orbited Equus, did those stars orbit planets of their own?

Needle realized with a start that he had waited just a little longer than he intended to. He got to his hooves and worked the controls again, closing the inner door and depressurizing the airlock. Once all the air had been evacuated from the chamber and the pressure within matched the vacuum without, the system allowed him to open the exterior door. As it slid open, he could see Toybox inside. The kinetic thrusters on its underside glowed gently and it lifted off, then slid noiselessly out of the hangar.

He released a breath he didn’t know he was holding as he saw them, the creatures he had begun to consider his friends, sitting in the little ship’s seats. Hex Key waved at him from the pilot’s seat, his ear-to-ear grin visible through his visor. He set the ship down a short distance away, and Needle carefully climbed aboard and strapped himself into the vacant seat. As soon as he was secure, Hex took off and immediately throttled Toybox in the direction of Starshine City.

Needle felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to see Spring grinning at him. She was trying to say something, but he couldn’t hear her words at all. She frowned, then turned her head to look at Hex in the pilot’s seat. Without warning, she turned back and put a hoof around the back of Needle’s head and pulled their faces together so that their visors were touching.

“Needle! Can you hear me?” she said. He could barely hear her through the vibrations conducted between their helmets, but her voice was just clear enough to make out. He nodded.

“Good! Hex says to tune your suit’s radio to nine-four-point-nine!”

He pulled away and started trying to figure out the suit’s more advanced controls, located on a fetlock-mounted screen. It wasn’t quite foolproof, but at least it didn’t allow him to do anything like shut off the suit’s life support or something equally foolish. Eventually he located the radio controls and was able to tune to the right frequency, signaled by a pop in his helmet.

“Hello?” he ventured.

“Hey, there he is!” Hex cried happily over the radio connection. “The hero of the hour! You, sir, are a steely-eyed missile mare.”

Needle had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but he couldn’t help but smile at the happiness in his and the others’ voices. Zuri, who was sitting in the copilot’s seat, twisted around to look at him.

“Pardon my language, but you look like shit. What happened?”

Needle shook his head. “Hex was right. It was not pleasant. I got rattled around and then spat out. I feel like a pair of dice at a Las Pegasus craps table.”

“Well, we appreciate your service, and thank you for joining us aboard Toybox Spacelines!” Hex Key announced as if he were the captain of a commercial spaceplane. “Our flight to Starshine City should take about five hours, so sit back, relax, and enjoy some complementary peanuts!”

Needle suddenly realized that there were only four people aboard. “Wait…where’s Rosette?”

“She decided to stay behind. We offered to take her with us, but she said she was needed at the station. She’s going to try to hinder the soldiers as much as she can from the inside,” Zuri answered.

“Oh.” Needle didn’t know why that bothered him. For some reason he had been hoping she’d come along with them, but he had to admire her loyalty to the station.

“By the way, that reminds me,” Spring said. “Rosette and I spoke a little while we were waiting for you to open the airlock. She admitted that she thought I was sent here as some kind of spy, or something. The worst she expected to happen was that some papers would go missing, not…this.” She waved a hoof around, indicating the entirety of their situation.

“So she believes your story now?”

“She said she doesn’t know what to believe anymore, but she trusts me to do the right thing, so that’s an improvement I guess.”


***


Their journey passed in silence for the better part of an hour. The only sounds to be heard were the faint vibrations from the ship’s engines, conducted through their seats. Needle noticed Hex Key glancing around, looking at the mirrors mounted to the outside of the cockpit, then he turned backwards to peer at something behind them. The others took notice as well, and they all turned around to look. Somewhere in the distance was a point of blue light, just above the horizon.

“Is that what I think it is?” Spring asked.

“If you think it’s another ship, coming up fast, then yes,” Hex replied. “Hold on!”

He immediately steered the ship down towards the ground, skirting the surface so low that Needle could make out individual rocks. Hex then put the thrusters into full reverse, shoving the passengers forward against their restraints. In record time, there was a jolt as Toybox’s skids touched down, then Hex quickly manipulated the controls to perform a complete shutdown. Within seconds, they were sitting in total darkness.

“We’re so small that it’ll be hard to pick us up on radar against the ground scatter. We’ll just have to hope they don’t have thermal scanners.”

“How do you know all this?” Needle asked.

“I used to work in a factory that assembled military aircraft. I know a few things, most of which I can’t tell you due to all the NDAs I signed.”

The four of them waited with bated breath, watching the ship in the distance as it grew closer. The ship continued to approach until it was almost on top of them, at which point Needle recognized it as a medium-sized cargo shuttle. The shuttle didn’t stop or even slow down as it passed overhead, and continued flying eastward towards Starshine City.

“What was that?” Zuri asked, almost in a whisper.

“I don’t know, but they didn’t seem to be looking for us. That either means that there are more soldiers heading for the city, or that some of the ponies on the Maulwurf managed to get away.” Hex reasoned.

They all looked around at each other with expressions that betrayed how likely they thought that would be. Wordlessly, Hex restarted the shuttle and resumed their course.


***


A few hours later, another point of light was seen on the horizon ahead of them. As it approached, it split into three distinct spots, indicating that there was a group of ships now coming their way, this time from the city.

“Could they be coming to help?” Zuri asked with cautious optimism.

“Or reinforcements,” Needle said grimly.

Once again, Hex guided Toybox down to the surface and landed, a little less haphazardly than before. And once again, the ships in the distance paid no heed to them as they flew far overhead, making a beeline straight towards the Maulwurf. Once they were far enough behind, Hex restarted the ship and pushed them onward.

“Guys, I’ve been thinking,” he said after a few seconds. “And it doesn’t make sense that they’d just attack a mining station in the middle of nowhere.”

“What are you saying?” Zuri said nervously.

“I’m saying that I think we should prepare for the possibility that those soldiers captured Starshine City first, and then came for the Maulwurf. We might not be flying into friendly territory.”

In truth, Needle had been thinking that as well, but he didn’t want to say it and dampen everyone’s mood. But since Hex had said it, he wanted to pick his brain and see what else he might glean from the situation.

“So let’s assume the city has been taken,” he said. “It’s been awhile since I’ve been there, but I don’t think the city has any defenses.”

In front of him, he saw Hex shake his head. “No, it doesn’t. It wasn’t built with armed incursions in mind at all. But the only ships we’ve seen so far are those cargo shuttles. It’s possible we’re dealing with a small band of mercenaries, rather than an organized military. They might have just taken the city by surprise.”

“But why?” Spring asked. “Why would anypony want to attack the city?”

“I don’t know.”

Once they had taken off and continued flying, Needle saw Spring’s helmet drooping out of the corner of his eye. He checked his suit’s clock and saw that it was past midnight. They had left the station at about eight o’clock, and had been flying for four hours. Now that the adrenaline had worn off, fatigue was beginning to set in. He felt his own eyelids grow heavy.

“Hey, Hex?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you doing all right? Do you need a break?”

“No, I’m good. I’ve pulled later shifts on the station.”

“Okay. I think we’re going to try to get some rest.”


***


The first sign that they were approaching the city came about an hour later, as the sun’s glow began to illuminate the eastern horizon. Hex advised them all to flip the reflective shields down over their suits’ visors, to protect them from being blinded by the sun. Within minutes, the source of the glow revealed itself as the dark disk of Equus peeked over the horizon. Perched just on the planet’s edge was the glowing orb of the sun, whose light cast a halo around the planet. The juxtaposition had the appearance of a glittering diamond ring on the horizon; this wasn’t the first time Needle had seen such a sight, but it was no less spectacular. He envied the citizens of Starshine City who got to see this every day.

Not long after, the lights of the city proper came into view. It was hard to make out the exact layout from this angle, but Needle remembered seeing maps that rendered the city as a spiderweb-like structure, with numerous peripheral research and factory facilities connected with trams to the inner core. As they approached one of these outlying structures, they were too awed by the sight of the glittering white buildings ahead of them to notice half a dozen flashes of light from the surface.

Toybox shuddered as something collided with it, then another, then another. They were being shot at! One of the fast-moving projectiles smashed through the cockpit, destroying most of the pilot’s display screens. Needle heard a scream over the radio.

“Shit!” Hex cursed as the crippled ship listed towards the ground, frantically operating buttons and switches with his free hoof. “The thrusters are hit! Landing gear stuck too…hang on, this is gonna be a rough ride!”

Toybox slewed drunkenly as it plummeted towards the ground. Hex yanked on the attitude control stick to pitch up just before impact, and the ship’s rear cargo compartment crumpled as it crashed into the ground. The cockpit of the ship hit next, rattling its occupants. The ship’s forward momentum was not so easily lost, and Toybox continued to slide forward along the dust.

“Come on, girl. Don’t roll over on me…” Hex coaxed. He continued to work the attitude controls, trying to keep the ship pointed forwards as its underbelly ground against the regolith. With a groan, the ship slowed and eventually stopped.

The radio channel was now filled with heavy breathing, but somepony was breathing much more frantically. Needle looked around to see who it might be, but Hex noticed first.

“Zuri? Zuri, it’s okay! Look at me. Just keep your hoof over the hole, just like that…you’ll be okay, just let me find something…”

Needle looked ahead to the copilot’s seat to see that Zuri was sitting with her right foreleg clamped over her left. He couldn’t see her face through her visor, but her breathing was clearly panicked. Hex quickly unstrapped himself and began desperately patting himself down and ripping open his suit’s pockets.

“Of all the days I forget…Celestia trample it! Needle! Spring! Is there a roll of grey tape anywhere near you? Look in boxes, anything!”

Needle looked around, but he didn’t see anything in the disarray of toolboxes scattered around him. He looked up at Spring to see that she was staring forward, with a death grip on the seat in front of her, trembling.

“Spring?” He put a hoof on her shoulder, but she didn’t react. He felt helpless; he had no idea how to handle trauma like this.

“Spring Bloom! Snap out of it!”

He started to shake her, and she suddenly reacted as if struck. She jerked away and stared at him through her faceless gold visor.

“Spring? It’s okay—”

“Okay? Okay!? No, none of this is okay!” She interrupted.

“Spring, please—”

“I’ve had it! Every spirits-damned ship I’ve ever been on has blown up or crashed or gotten invaded by fucking mercenaries! I FUCKING HATE SPACE!!”

“I get that! I really do. But right now, Zuri needs our help!”

Suddenly all the fury was gone from Spring’s voice, replaced with concern. “Zuri?”

“I got it!” Hex Key shouted. “Don’t worry, Stripes, I’m coming!”

Needle looked around and saw that Hex had found the tape he was looking for by scouring the field of toolboxes that had been ejected from Toybox’s cargo area in the crash. He bounded up to the left side of the ship and climbed back in.

“Okay, I need you to take your hoof off for a second. It’s okay, I’ll fix it.”

Zuri hesitantly released her hoof from her foreleg to reveal that a large gash had been torn in her suit. Needle couldn’t hear the outrushing air, but he could see the edges of the tear fluttering as it escaped. Hex quickly wrapped her leg in copious amounts of grey tape, covering the hole.

“Is that good?”

Zuri’s breathing began to slow. “I-I think so. There’s not so many alerts anymore. Y-yeah, the pressure is rising again.”

“Oh, thank the spirits…is everyone okay? Anything broken?”

“What was that!?” Spring cried.

“I have no idea. Some kind of anti-spacecraft weapon would be my guess. There haven’t been any follow-up shots since we landed, so I think we’re safe for now.” Hex shielded his eyes with a foreleg and looked into the distance, at the building they had been flying towards. “But we’re going to have to hoof it from here. It’s not far, thankfully.”

Hex helped Zuri unstrap herself and dismount from the ship, and Needle did the same for Spring. He couldn’t help but notice that she was still trembling. Before they set off, Hex walked around and began picking up whatever tools he could find and stuffing them into his suit’s pockets, including the grey tape. Once he had finished scavenging and returned, he tenderly placed a hoof on the totaled ship’s hull.

“Rest in peace, Toybox. You were a good ship.”

The four of them started walking towards Starshine City, casting long shadows behind them.