//------------------------------// // 29 - Everything is Going to be Okay // Story: The Black Between the Stars // by Rambling Writer //------------------------------// Applejack’s head swam. “… … …?” Why were sounds muffled like that? Couldn’t they speak up? “… … … … …!” And how was she resting on the ceiling? Shouldn’t the artificial gravity- Then her balance corrected herself and Applejack realized she was jammed on the floor, right next to a console. “… … …ar me?” Ah. It wasn’t them that was muffled, it was just her own hearing. Good to know. Applejack attempted to declare that she was okay. “ ’M ’kay!” she croaked. Close enough. She flailed her legs awkwardly and managed to roll onto her hooves. As the world spun, she licked her lips. They felt a bit numb, but otherwise fine. “I’m okay!” she called out. Still hoarse, but much better. She took a deep breath- -and immediately gagged. Sweet Celestia, the stench. Oil and blood and vomit and sweat and pus, all mixed together. She blinked again, bringing the world into focus. There weren’t any changelings left. There was, however, an awful lot of black goo left. Everywhere. Literally everywhere. On the floors, on the walls, on the ceilings, on the control panels, everything. Within that goo, there wasn’t anything left that looked like it could’ve been a body. The guards that were still alive were pulling themselves out of the muck, trying to shake their hooves clean. “Try not to get any of that stuff in your mouths or in any wounds!” Spitfire yelled. “We don’t know if it’s toxic!” Applejack turned; Spitfire was limping towards her with a broken wing and a hoof pressed to a bloody gash on her neck. She grinned, an expression Applejack couldn’t remember seeing on her before. “Hey, AJ,” she said, sounding on the verge of a coughing fit. “Good j-” “Whoa, hey.” Applejack pointed at the wound on Spitfire’s neck. “Is that safe? I can look for-” “Missed the carotid. I’m fine,” wheezed Spitfire. At least she sounded strong beneath that wheeze. “See?” She pulled her hoof away; blood trickled out from her cut, but it wasn’t the spurting that’d come from a cut artery. “Alright,” Applejack said tentatively. “But lemme know if y’need somethin’, alright?” “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Spitfire waved a hoof in Applejack’s direction. Somehow, that dismissal sounded happier than anything she’d said in ages. “Good job with the…” She gestured vaguely at the shield generator. “…thing.” With a shiver, she added, “Even if having no magic feels weird.” “Worth it, though,” said Applejack. “Heh. Yeah.” Because it was. It’d worked. The changelings had been reduced to this… mess in seconds. Based on Twilight’s calculations, all throughout the station, this had happened. Wherever changelings were hiding, wherever they could possibly be, they’d been affected. They were dead, harmless, incapable of anything more. It was over. Truth be told, Applejack nearly curled up and went to sleep right then and there. She could’ve, if she’d wanted to, and nopony would’ve blamed her. But this needed to get mopped up, or at least something vaguely resembling mopped up. Just like on the farm, you couldn’t quit the second after you crossed out your last checklist item. There were all sorts of other things you needed to do. At least she didn’t need to worry about getting killed, now. But then, suddenly, a jolt raced down Applejack’s spine. “Where’s Twilight?” she asked. If she hadn’t been fast enough in getting the generator running again… Spitfire came to the same realization and her eyes went wide. She immediately staggered over to the door, Applejack following. Yet, when they arrived at the door, it was still closed. Twilight was slumped against it, breathing heavily and apparently unharmed. But when she looked up, her eyes weren’t quite focused and there was something strange about her smile. Applejack slowed to a stop as caution reasserted itself. For all she knew, Twilight had been affected in some non-magical way. “Uh. Twi?” she risked. “Y’alright?” “I’m fine, Grandma!” Twilight chirped blearily. “I’ll get the cookies out of the oven in juuuuust a minute!” Still smiling, she toppled onto her side. “Her horn’s intact, so she’ll be alright,” Spitfire said gruffly. She rolled Twilight onto her back to keep her mouth free from any changeling remains. “Magic overload. I’ve seen it before. She’s swimming through happy memories while her mind sorts itself out. Give her… I dunno, five minutes, I’ve never seen it on an alicorn before.” Applejack was still a little dubious, but she said, “If’n you say so.” “I do say so.” Spitfire looked back at the room. “Gimme a sec, I need to check on my ponies.” Without waiting for a response from Applejack, she walked over to the nearest coughing pony and engaged him in conversation. Which reminded Applejack of something important. She waded back through the gunk to where Trixie had hacked into the computers, hoping that- There she was. Trixie was sitting against the wall, cradling a leg that really shouldn’t have been bending that way and gritting bloodstained teeth. When she saw Applejack, though, she twisted that grimace into something that decently resembled a smile and waved. “Hey,” she gasped. “Hey.” Applejack sat down next to her; she looked at the leg and cringed. “Y’alright?” “Not really. But Trixie will live.” She grinned and clouted Applejack on the shoulder. “Because we did it.” Applejack found herself grinning. They had, hadn’t they? “Well, I did,” she responded lightly. “Trixie helped!” “By openin’ one door?” “Helping is helping,” Trixie declared. A pause. “It… was mostly you. But Trixie. Helped.” “Heh. I guess y’did.” “Where’s Blueblood? He helped, too.” Applejack’s cheer immediately bubbled away. She looked at the floor, her ears folded back. “He, uh…” Swallow. “He didn’t make it. Died savin’ me from the queen.” “Oh,” Trixie gasped in a small voice. “That’s…” She looked away, blinking. “…unfortunate.” Her tone implied she was too shocked to find another word. Applejack couldn’t blame her. “Yeah.” Applejack looked at the shield generator. Disgusting globs of black stuff were floating around inside, along with a mangled thing that was vaguely recognizable as Blueblood’s body. “Let’s get ’im out.” She needed to swap the nullwave catalyst with the magnetosphere catalyst, anyway. With a groan, she got to her feet and hit the shutdown button again. With nullwave generation shut down, her magic bled back into her as she climbed the stairs, and with it came her stamina. Her head stopped spinning and her muscles stopped burning. She still felt beaten down, but now, she could handle it. Trixie’s hack to unlock the door was still working, and Applejack was soon drifting around the inside of the shield generator, through the muck that had once been the queen. She had to wave around blindly to find the hard frame of the magnetic catalyst. By luck, it still seemed to be intact and the generator didn’t make any beeps of protest at being fed a bad component. Then Applejack hover-waded through the muck again and found the second thing she was looking for: Blueblood’s body. She cringed when she felt it; the skin was charred from the shield generator, sticky and bloody from the queen’s attacks. But he didn’t deserve to rest in here. Swallowing her bile (easier said than done in zero-G), she pulled him out. Trixie had followed her up and helped move Blueblood from the shield generator to an open spot in the room. The remains of the queen weren’t sticky and quickly dripped off the body. Blueblood was still wearing his pajamas, if you could call those dirty rags “pajamas”. His body looked even worse when halfway clean, mangled and fried and shredded and broken. This was one of the ponies that had doomed them. This was one of the ponies that had saved them. Applejack’s emotions were in turmoil as she tried to sort out what she thought of him. But she crouched down and closed his eyes. She knew he deserved that much, at least. “What do you think they’ll do about him?” Trixie asked quietly. “The… Crown, I mean. He was…” “Dunno. Too tired t’think.” In all honesty, Applejack couldn’t have begun to think even if she weren’t tired. Things were so much simpler as a farmer or an engineer. No PR, no juggling family members in important positions, nothing beyond the job. She’d never encounter anything remotely on this level. “Good thing it ain’t my problem.” Trixie nodded slowly. “Yes. It’s… It’s a shame that…” “Yeah.” What more was there to say? “Ponies!” Twilight yelled out. She didn’t sound loopy anymore. “While the changelings are probably all dead, Spitfire wants to be sure. If and only if you feel up to it, she’s going to be organizing some search groups. Get over here and she’ll assign you part of the station to search. Or don’t get over here and take a rest. I won’t blame you. In the meantime, I’ll head to the bridge and see if anypony’s awake at mission control on Equus.” With magic running through her body again, Applejack realized she didn’t want to rest just yet, not with her heart pumping like this. A scouring for still-alive changelings (that was looking less likely by the second) was just the sort of work to bring herself down that she was looking for. “Sounds like somethin’,” she said to Trixie. “I’ll see if’n I can get the arboretum. What’re you thinkin’?” “Trixie is returning to the cargo bay. She should get this looked at.” She wiggled her bad leg. “Yeah, that’s pr’y for the best. Say, you take care, alright?” In spite of her leg, Trixie grinned. “Trixie always takes care, Applejack. And she’s seen enough to know that you will, too.” Applejack found herself grinning. “Yeah. Thanks.” The next hour or so fell into a blur. Applejack dug through the arboretum, looking through all the nooks and crannies she knew, trying to find a live changeling. She found plenty of horrible-smelling gunk, sometimes well-hidden, but no actual changelings. She’d feel bad about the mess once she’d had some rest. Every now and then, she’d be contacted over her suit radio by other teams, all reporting nothing. Every single changeling on Golden Oaks had been liquefied Once she’d combed over the arboretum as much as she could, Applejack collapsed on the grass and stared up into space. It didn’t seem nearly as frightening, now. Terrible monsters had come crawling out of the abyss, creatures that had destroyed civilizations, and she’d beaten them back. It was still lonely and empty, but now she knew that whatever it threw at her, she could handle it. And even if she couldn’t, she already knew for a fact that she’d go down swinging. She’d still prefer to not go down, though. And she wasn’t down yet. Suddenly, a chime ran through the arboretum, Golden Oaks’ stationwide PA system. “Fillies and gentlecolts,” Twilight said, “we’ve made contact with ground control. They’re already working to get a relief shuttle up. It should be here in no more than five hours.” Help. It was far too late, and still Applejack grinned. With every minute, she got more and more evidence that the nightmare was over. At least once the shuttle arrived, she wouldn’t be worried about doing everything herself. Speaking of the shuttle, what would happen to Golden Oaks’ personnel once the station was secure again? They’d probably get sent back down to Equus for questioning. And once that was done? If she could, Applejack was going straight back to the farm. No way was she leaving that again, no matter how many mechanized harvesters she had to buy. “I’ll let you all know when it’s here,” Twilight continued. “In the meantime… You know what, I don’t care. Call this a day off. Take a nap if you want. But if your heart’s pumping and you need something to do, I’ll be in the lobby with Spitfire. This wreck needs organizing. Out.” Yeah, no. Applejack had been doing things for far too long. A nap it was. She loped through the wreckage of the habitation decks almost idly, whistling like the place hadn’t been ripped to shreds. Some of the worst debris had been cleaned by ponies, but it was still a mess. Applejack didn’t care. It was just familiar enough to feel more like home than anything else had in the past few hours. As she walked through the hallways, she sniffed. Not much of a smell. It seemed there hadn’t been many changelings in here when the nullwave went off. Of course, there didn’t need to be; everypony had been killed or driven out in the first attack, so no changeling would hang around. Good. She wouldn’t be able to sleep if the place smelled worse than vomit. When she reached the crew’s bunks, she strode all the way to the back. Her pod wasn’t much. But it was comfy and it was private and it was exactly what Applejack needed right now. Without bothering to take off her uniform, she crawled in and put her hat over her face. Finally, some peace and- Her clock flipped over to 8:00 and a chime binged through the pod. “Good morning, Applejack. Today is Monday, March 15th, 1008.” Applejack damn near put a hoof through her alarm.