Star Trek: Phoenix

by Dewdrops on the Grass

Season 3 Episode 6: "Smashing!"

”Roseluck’s personal log, stardate 521, er, 5221… no, wait, it was 523— oh for Celestia’s sake. Computer, what the heck is the date again?”

“Stardate 52109.6.”

Right. So, let’s try this again. Personal log, stardate whatever the computer just said. Or, in case anypony back home ever hears this, Summer’s End 12th, YC 1005. This is my first time trying one of these log things, but recent events have me thinking of the little diary I kept when I was a filly, and I’m hopeful that putting my thoughts somewhere can once again help me sort my thoughts a bit.

It’s been a little over two weeks since we left Equus. Two weeks since I, and dozens of other creatures from across Equus, boarded the starship Phoenix as volunteers. Our mission? Limp the ship home, make even more repairs, and then get back to Equus and fix the sun before it dies and turns the entire planet into an icy grave.

It’s still crazy to think about, to be honest. Two months ago the entire concept of aliens seemed nuts to all of us; well, maybe except for Lyra. That all changed when Phoenix quite literally crashed into our backyard after falling through what I can only describe as a huge tunnel through space. There’s a more technical term for all of that but I honestly can’t remember it right now. Just remembering how to talk to the… the— oh, what do they call elevators? Oh right, the turbolift. Just getting the turbolift to take you where you need to go is a challenge some days.

And I haven’t even gotten to the part that this ship, which hails from something called a Federation, counts among its crew not just the mythical Sirens, but both of the mares at the center of the biggest ‘missing ponies’ cases Equestria has seen in generations. And one of them is the captain of the ship too! Well, I guess Captain Shimmer was the second in command, but the ship’s usual captain was seriously hurt and had to stay behind on Equus while the rest of us went to find help, so she’s in charge now.

Obviously I would prefer that Captain Liang had not been hurt at all, but under the circumstances, I think a lot of the volunteers, myself included, take some comfort in the fact that a pony is the captain of the ship. Even the non-pony volunteers, I think, get at least a sense of familiarity from it. Ponies may not be their best friends ever, but they’re a known quantity; they pretty much know what to expect from us in most situations. They know what makes us tick.

Which is why none of us were surprised at Captain Shimmer’s reaction over the death of Flitter.

Perhaps more so than any other species on Equus, ponies share a collective sense of responsibility toward each other, one that goes far beyond common courtesy or manners. It’s more like a duty to look out for each other’s wellbeing, to help them maintain success and stability in whatever path they and their cutiemark sets them on, and perhaps most importantly, to protect them from danger. That sense of mutual duty is ingrained in all of us from the time we’re foals. Everypony knows that duty and what it means for them.

So the sudden loss of a pony, especially in tragic ways like this… how do I put this? Hmm… it’s not just about the death itself, though that’s obviously bad for all the obvious reasons. For us ponies, it’s the sense of failure that comes along with it. You knew that pony. They were your friend, your neighbor, your coworker, your regular customer at the shop, and so on. You knew them better than almost anyone, and yet look what happened to them. Why didn’t you do anything to help? How did you miss that risk to them? OR, worst of all, what did you do to put them at such risk at all?

I can all but guarantee you that’s what’s been eating away at the captain since she discovered it was Flitter who had died when that conduit exploded. Volunteer or not, Flitter was her crew, her responsibility. And she let her die. That the cause of her death was a flaw in the ship itself only amplifies that sense of guilt Sunset is feeling.

Pinkie Pie and I have ended up taking turns trying to explain this dynamic to some of the Starfleet crew who have stopped to talk to us in the dining hall, including a few of the other senior officers. I can tell they’re trying very earnestly to understand, and I credit them greatly for that. But I can also see the confusion in their eyes too; the wonder why Sunset seemed more visibly shaken at Flitter’s funeral than she was at the service for the dozens of crewmembers lost in the horrific battle that brought Phoenix to Equus in the first place. It’s not that Sunset cares less for them than she does Flitter, or any other Equus volunteer for that matter. I have no doubt every person Sunset has lost along the way weighs on her. It’d weigh on me too. But it’s that extra biological knife in the back that makes the grief and the mourning that much more personal.

I hope to get some time with the captain when she returns from this salvage operation mission. Not just to see how she’s doing, pony to pony, but also try to relay to her what Pinkie Pie and I have observed in the rest of the crew. I don’t know Sunset all that well personally, but I know if I were in her horseshoes, I’d want to know if my closest colleagues were wondering what was going on in my head and trying to make sense of it. She deserves a chance to explain it on her terms too.

As for the rest of us… I’d be lying if I said the rest of the volunteers took Flitter’s death in stride. There were more than a few rattled nerves amongst the volunteers who showed up at a rather impromptu meeting that had been called by Braeburn the evening after Flitter’s memorial service. I think he just needed to not be in his room alone, and wanted others to help him process, and I can’t say I blame him.

Don’t get me wrong, we all knew this was going to be a dangerous mission. Heck, what part of this isn’t dangerous? The only thing separating us from instant death in a vacuum is this ship, which is currently patched together like a huge metallic jigsaw puzzle and is powered by an energy source so volatile that one malfunction could blow us all to Tartarus in the blink of an eye. Then again, another attack from those, um, Or-ions, though, and we could end up as spacedust anyway. And that’s assuming there aren’t even worse things out there that we haven’t run across yet!

Absent maybe Pinkie Pie, I’m not sure any of us thought we’d get all the way to the Federation and back without at least one brush with serious calamity or worse. I… guess I just didn’t think we’d have to face it so soon is all. Some of us are still getting used to walking around the ship without getting lost and we’ve already had to bury one of our own.

We ponies, to say nothing of hardheads like dragons and griffons, don’t give up anything easily. But to say morale among the group was impacted would be an understatement.

Surprisingly, it was Cloudchaser of all ponies who took the floor at that point. But if she had any anger or resentment to vent, she didn’t show it. Rather, she spoke plainly but movingly about not just her late sister, but what being here meant for the both of them. Flitter was always the more cautious of the two, but she also dreamed of a chance to step out of her routines and do something new. Something big. For her part, Cloudchaser had always been the rebel of the pair, always drifting from one idea, one passion to the next.

But, in an echo of that sense of responsibility that underlays all ponies’ lives, Cloudchaser said that in this mission she saw the focus she had always lacked. A big challenge, but one with a concrete goal – protect and defend the ponies around you.

And in her act of bravery, Cloudchaser pointed out, Flitter demonstrated that basic principle to the fullest. She gave her life to save the ship, and every creature on it. Even ones she hadn’t met yet. In her shoes, would any of us not have done the same? Pony or not?

Not a single hoof, paw, or claw raised an objection. And I think at that moment, a renewed bond between all of the volunteers took form. Now we have a second goal besides saving the planet – ensuring that Flitter’s selfless act to protect us pays off.

Oh, wow. Ten o’clock already? Or, I guess I need to get used to saying… twenty-two hundred. Yes, that’s it. I should get some sleep. Wallflower and I will be trying out some new environmental settings in Hydroponics tomorrow, in an attempt to get some more specialty vegetables and flowers to grow consistently. Even I get tired of just daisies on my sandwiches after a while, you know?

And while we’re doing that, apparently the ship will be checking out some nearby systems in hopes of finding a willing point of trade, or at least a junkyard we can scavenge from. Not like we have much of a choice at this point, but I trust the bridge crew to do what they need to do.

I just have to hope that when we all came aboard the Phoenix, we didn’t bring some of Ponyville’s affinity for craziness with us.

I flopped onto my couch in my quarters, still shaken despite the services having finished over an hour ago. A cup of chamomile and mint tea floated in my magic, with a matching cup in Luna’s as she took a seat next to me. “I believe that went well, all things considered,” she said as she took a sip before setting the cup down in the saucer on the coffee table. “Your eulogy was quite poignant as well.”

It took me a moment to realize she’d spoken in native Ponish, rather than using the universal translator. Hearing her with her natural accent instead of the flat pronunciation provided by the UT was as refreshing as it was surprising. So I elected to respond in kind and deactivated my own UT before replying.

“...yeah, it went better than I thought it would,” I admitted. I brought my own cup up to my mouth and cradled it in my forehooves to feel the warmth, appreciating it for a moment before taking a drink. “I’m also glad it’s over.”

“As am I,” Luna replied. “Perhaps a change of subject is in order.” She plucked a scone from her plate and took a bite, chewing thoughtfully. “I don’t suppose you’re willing to finally talk about your experiences on the station.”

The station. After I’d spoken with Isekai and left the bar, I did my best to pretend that nothing untoward or unusual had happened. Most of the crew bought it, but Luna hadn’t. She’d known, somehow, upon seeing me on the ship again after we finished gathering supplies. She'd asked me about it twice already, but I kept putting her off, citing the need to focus on the memorial service first. And in all honesty I did. But with the service done, I knew there was no squirming out from under Luna's questioning gaze this time.

Sighing a little, I set my cup down and reached into the inside pocket of my uniform with my magic, floating out a card, upon which were the words Sunset’s Isekai backed by a symbol of a martini glass in neon. Oddly, despite clearly being in English, I could still read it clear as day, even with the UT off. I handed the card over to Luna, who took it, her eyes widening ever so slightly. “I didn’t want to tell the crew, because I was afraid it would cause morale issues if they knew their Captain had spent a couple of hours relaxing in an interdimensional bar.”

“What is this?” Luna said as she turned the card over in her magic. “It is clearly enchanted, and substantially so. I am able to read these words despite clearly not being Ponish.”

A smirk crossed my face as I reached for my tricorder on a distant table, floating it over to take a reading of the card before showing Luna. “Not to mention unusual. It might look like paper, but this card is made of something far more complex. And it’s old; several centuries old at least.”

“And yet it bears your name.” She held it for a moment longer, and handed it back to me.

I slipped the card back into my uniform. “That’s because I met myself there. Or a version of myself, at least, from another universe. She looked young and vibrant in every sense, but I could tell right away that behind it all was someone ancient.”

“Truly?”

“I could see it in her eyes, Luna. There was an immense depth to them, one that only comes with wisdom and untold amounts of time. In a way, it was like looking into Celestia's eyes, only these were far, far older.”

Luna's ears perked up at that and she sat up straighter. “Older than Celestia? How much older?”

Shrugging, I replied, “I honestly don't know, and I doubt I ever will. Besides,” I chuckled, “you don't need to be a Starfleet officer to know you don't go around asking potentially god-like creatures running extra-dimensional bars for their ID.” I sat back on the sofa and floated my tea over to take another sip. “The important thing though is what she had to say, and well, she had a lot to say. But it was all stuff that I needed to hear and, if I may be blunt, I needed to hear from myself.” I gave Luna an apologetic look. “Not that our talk before wasn't helpful too. It was. She... just had a way of cutting to the heart of things so quickly.”

“As I suspected.” Luna finished her scone. “You seemed to carry less weight on your shoulders when you returned.”

“It was the funniest thing, though,” I said. “I saw a strange door, I entered it, and there she was. You know, I never once wondered what I’d look like as a human before I saw her?”

Luna, in the middle of sipping her tea, spat it out messily all over the carpet. “She was human?!”

“Yeah. We… we took a picture too.” I reached back into my uniform to show Luna, who all but snatched it in her haste to stare at it so intently I feared for a moment it would catch fire from her gaze alone. “Apparently, it’s actually pretty normal for other Sunsets to spend some time as humans. I’m one of the lucky few who doesn’t, I guess.”

“You must forgive me,” Luna whispered, her eyes never leaving the picture. “I am still finding it hard to believe that a human version of you would even exist.” She glanced up from the picture. “Perhaps this means there are other versions of myself. Or Celestia. Could we both be humans somewhere, perhaps?”

“Yes, well, this stays between us. I cannot let the crew find out about this. At least not now.”

Her eyes dropped back to the picture. “So you said before, but I am afraid I do not understand why.”

Gently, I took the picture back, and got up from the couch. I went over to a small lockbox sitting on my desk, one in which I kept my most precious keepsakes, and tapped in the code before opening it and placing the picture inside. “Because the bar is extra-dimensional. It exists outside of what we consider normal time and space, which means it can open from anywhere, to anywhere. But, the me who runs the bar is also sworn to not interfere with the people or timelines that pay her a visit. Which I can understand, of course, but I don't need to tell you what the crew's reaction would be if they found out I gave up a chance at a shortcut home.”

Luna let out a frustrated-sounding sigh. “Of course. Much like your Federation’s Prime Directive. But why allow you in at all? Or anyone for that matter?”

“Because…. She helped me take some time to actually relax, clear my head. She gave me some useful advice, and I needed all of that. She said that's what she does. Be in the right place for the right person at the right time. And believe me, I'm not her only customer. Some of the pictures I saw on her wall… there were all kinds of species, all sorts of people. And so many versions of me, it was unreal.”

Luna let out a small laugh. “Of course. Now I understand. Something about this seemed familiar, but until you said that I hadn’t fully recalled.”

“Huh?”

She got up from the sofa and trotted over to me. “Celestia told me a lot of things after my return. Catching me up on the thousand years I missed. She spent so much of it speaking of you, though, and said that once upon a time, shortly before Twilight Sparkle’s examination, she found a door she’d never seen before in the castle. When she stepped through, she broke into tears, because she saw you. Or what she thought was you.”

I remained silent for a moment, digesting that. “That’s… interesting. Isekai did say she'd met a lot of different Celestias, though if this occurred before Twilight came to Earth then it makes sense that she wouldn't know that she's actually met my Celestia.”

“Ee-sick-eye?”

A snort of laughter escaped me. “Isekai,” I corrected gently. “It’s what she asked me to call her. Made it a little easier to speak with her.” I pulled out the card again and tapped the word Isekai on it. “Anyway, she gave me this so that if I ever need to speak with her again, I can use it to summon up an entrance. Which, I might. Maybe. If I ever feel I really need it.”

Luna nodded in understanding. “Of course, there is something to be said for not becoming reliant upon an exit from your problems.”

“Exactly. Trust me, I have no intention of abusing the privilege. It's just, well, nice to know she's out there if I really do need her.” I slipped the card into the lockbox and sealed it, then went to sit back down on the couch. “But not right now.”

“Indeed.”

My combadge chirped, automatically re-engaging the universal translator in the process. “Wattson to Captain Shimmer.”

“Go ahead, Wattson,” I said after tapping it.

“The last team has returned from the station. We’ve scavenged all we can here. Skimming the inventory of items, I'm estimating we can get phasers back to three-quarters strength, and make improvements in a number of other systems while we're at it.”

“I don’t suppose that includes the warp drive?”

“No, ma’am, unfortunately not.”

A wry smile stretched at my muzzle. “Very well. Let's make the improvements we can, and keep looking for more repair opportunities along the way. Good work, Amelia.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

I tapped my badge once to end that transmission, then tapped it again and said, “Shimmer to bridge.”

“Bridge here.”

“All away teams have returned, and we’ve done all we can with the station. Resume our previous course for Federation space.”

“Aye, ma’am.”

I glanced out the windows to watch the planet and station disappear from view as the ship pitched itself around, before the thrum of the warp engines matched the view outside as the ship accelerated to warp speeds. “We’ve still got a long road ahead of us, Luna, but we’ll get there.” I nodded to myself firmly. “I won’t let Flitter’s sacrifice be in vain.”

Luna reached over and gently patted my back with a wing. “Of that, I never had any doubt.”

I sighed in frustration as I looked over the latest test results from the scans we took of the Diamond Dog caverns. “You’re certain about this, Blackford?”

“Positive, ma’am. This,” he said, holding up a second PADD, “and that are two parts of a combined password.”

This was a copy of the results from the Dragon’s terminal message. Ever since the caverns we’d been struggling to locate any other energy signatures or terminals, despite several attempts to scan the planet during the myriad of shuttle trips. But shuttlecraft sensors were limited in both range and resolution, meaning it took us multiple trips to get the detail a starship could get with a single sensor sweep. I thought about sending the shuttles up in pairs to increase scan efficiency, but recently they spent most of their time away from base, helping one community or another prepare measures to combat the worsening weather.

And it was worsening quickly too. A simple glance at the window showed it was snowing in Ponyville. Snowing. In what was supposed to be the first rainstorm of autumn. The local Running of the Leaves hadn’t even taken place yet, let alone Nightmare Night or any other autumnal festival.

Just last week, the solar satellite took its lowest dip yet, the output abruptly falling to ten percent of normal before shooting up to nearly ninety percent in the span of a few minutes – while Princess Celestia was delivering a major speech in front of a massive audience in Manehattan. A speech that was also being broadcast via radio to all of Equestria.

Which meant they all saw or heard their indomitable princess age centuries in a matter of minutes, then regain much of her youth just as quickly. To say panic ensued would be a massive understatement. The secret was out now. And ponies were scared.

So listening to Blackford prattle on about passwords wasn’t helping much. “Have you at least figured out how it’s assembled, or how many parts we’re missing?”

“Not yet,” he said. The glare of irritation must’ve been evident, because he added, “I’m sorry, Lieutenant, I am, but we’re doing the best we can.”

I sighed and tossed both PADDs down onto my desk. “I know, I know, just…” My face fell into my forehooves for a moment as I tried to rub my face clear of the exhaustion that was becoming a regular feature of daily life. “Everything’s starting to get to me.”

“You’ve had a lot on your plate.”

“You can say that again,” I murmured as I picked up the two PADDs again, looking at them side by side. My weary eyes could barely parse them.

Blackford gave me a soft, understanding smile. “You want something to drink, ma’am?”

“Yeah… yeah, just, no more coffee please.” I glanced at the trio of mugs sitting next to me I hadn’t yet stuffed back inside the replicator, all three of which bore the stains of quadruple strength raktajino. “I’ve had too much already.”

He chuckled and collected the mugs, then hummed as he tucked them into the replicator. “Two raspberry teas with rose hips and hibiscus, lightly sweet,” he told it. After a brief hum, he reached in and came back with two steaming mugs, setting one next to me.

“That’s a little unusual,” I murmured as I took it and sniffed, noticing the aroma quite pleasant.

“Just a little family blend to help relax after a hard day.” He glanced at my terminal. “Hey, those’re the combined scans of the Elements of Harmony, right?”

I looked up at the scan, something I’d been examining a while ago more for the sake of taking a brief break than anything else. The intricate ways the patterns weaved together, the six pieces, it was fascinating. “Yeah, what about it?”

“I’m wondering,” he replied, taking a sip of his tea. “What would the scan look like if you only had two of the Elements?”

I rolled my eyes and separated the combined scan into its six different pieces. “We took those already, see? They only match together partially. It’s incomplete.” I sent the computer through several permutations to demonstrate.

But as I did so, I found my eyes narrowing more and more through each version. “Wait a minute… six pieces…” A gasp escaped my lips. “Oh my god, you might be onto something.”

He chuckled. “Yeah?”

I picked up the PADDs again and moved the scans to the terminal. “Yes. Look at these two pieces. One from the Dragons, the other from the Diamond Dogs. Computer, extrapolate the probability of there being missing pieces to a combined carrier wave.”

The computer bleeped for a moment, then said, “Probability estimated at eighty-nine percent confidence.”

“Damn,” he whispered. He took another drink of his tea. “You think they could be with other species?”

“I’d count on it,” I said with a firm nod.

“Well, I—”

“Shuttlepod to Lieutenant Sparkle.”

I couldn’t help a small bounce in place as Preta’s voice filtered through the comms. “Go ahead.”

“Ma’am, we’ve just detected something extremely unusual up here in the mountains north of the Crystal Empire.”

I sat up straighter in my chair. The shuttlepod had flown to Trottingham, and the quickest route from there to here passed just to the east of the Crystal city. “Define unusual?”

A moment’s pause passed before the reply came. “According to Lieutenant Pog, there’s some kind of dampening field in place. It’s strong enough to block detailed scans of the area while still registering on sensors.”

A dampening field. Blackford's eyes and my own met momentarily. “Can you confirm there were no readings of this previously?”

“Pog is certain of it!” answered Pog’s rough voice, his usual blend of humor underlaying his inflections despite the seriousness of the matter. “Pog has passed over this region many times and never once did this appear.”

I brought my terminal up and switched one of the displays over to a map of the northern part of the continent. “Transmit the location of the field.”

“Transmitting now.”

After just a split second, another display lit up with the signal, and I overlaid its coordinates.

Squarely on the capital of Yakyakistan.

“I think we just found our third piece of the password,” I said.

“I’m sorry, ma’am?”

“I’ll brief you on your return,” I said. “Sparkle out.”

“Yakyakistan, huh?” Blackford let out a deep laugh. “That sure is an interesting quirk of the universal translator.”

I raised an eyebrow, not quite understanding. “What do you mean?”

“It's... a bit of a history lesson to get the full explanation.”

I smirked and leaned forward. “You know I'm always ready for a history lesson.”

“Oh, just, on Earth, most nations ending in -stan were influenced by Persian and other Iranic languages, and it’s typically associated with the Islamic faith.” His smile brightened the room. “My father comes from Tajikistan, but he took my dad’s last name when they married. He taught me a lot about the cultures and the languages of the region. The -stan ending actually means something like ‘a place abounding in’ or ‘a dwelling.’ So it fits. It’s just giving me some amusing pictures in my head.”

As much as I wanted to be jotting down notes and asking follow-up questions, I forced myself to keep things on track. “That's really interesting, Blackford. Thank you. We'll have to save the rest for later though, unfortunately. Please contact Ayhan and Vohrn. Have them prepare for an expedition as soon as I can secure us access.”

“Aye, ma’am,” he said. As he left, the doors opened briefly to admit Doctor May.

“Lieutenant, mind if I speak with you for a moment?” she asked.

A quick look at her showed me a face that looked too much like my own lately – haggard and drawn, exhausted from repeated work. Even with the local hospital assisting with the long-term medical care, Doctor May had her hands full and then some. I doubt she’d had a day off since we landed. And given our personal friendship, that bothered me.

I just hadn’t had any time to see to fixing it.

Gesturing for her to take a seat, I said, “Of course, Sarah.”

She dropped herself into the armchair with a soft sigh, leaning back against its comfortable support. Like all the furniture in what I’d fashioned as my office, it had been meant for diplomats and other VIPs, and so was excessively comfortable first, and practical second. “Thank you, Twilight,” May murmured, her Scottish brogue thicker than usual. She carefully rubbed the bridge of her nose. “It’s just been one thing after another.”

I hopped out of my chair and trotted over to the replicator. “Raspberry and… what was it? Oh, just one more of the last item replicated,” I said. After a moment I pulled out the steaming mug and brought it over to May. “Did something happen?” I gently pressed.

She cradled it between her hands, which bore more wrinkles than I remembered. Sarah wasn’t elderly by any means but she wasn’t a youth either, and the stress made it show. “It’s Ensign Banasiewicz.”

“Radoslawa?” I said, raising my head. She was half-Bijani, from engineering, one of the many cut down by the Jem’Hadar during their attack on the Phoenix. As I recalled from the records I’d studied of all of our injured crew left behind, she’d initially been listed as one of the casualties until it was realized she was in a pain trance, which had the unintended side effect of making her appear deceased on initial scan. Unfortunately that meant her injuries went untreated for too long, and she’d developed numerous complications.

“Mmhmm.” May took a long gulp of her tea. “Poor girl’s been struggling even to stay conscious the last few days, and now…” Her hands trembled as she set the mug down on the counter. “She’s lapsed into a coma, and won’t come out of it. There’s nothing more I can do, other than keep her on life support, and hope.”

While I didn’t know Radoslawa personally, I had spoken with her a couple of times over the last month, just like I had with the rest of the long-term care patients. She’d been sweet, kind, and remarkably intelligent. Someone I could easily see myself befriending.

“We knew we’d only be able to do so much,” I murmured, trying to school my voice into a comforting tone. “It’s not your fault, Sarah.”

“Like hell it’s nae,” she grunted, scooping up her drink to knock the rest back in one gulp. “If I had half the equipment I should, she’d be doin’ just fine. But with what we’ve got, I’m helpless.”

I sighed. “No luck with finding a way to utilize pony magic in assisting the healing process?”

“Nope.” She got out of her chair, her spine audibly creaking as she walked over to the replicator. “Gimme another one of those teas, ya daft machine.” Her mug was replaced with a freshly steaming one that she brought back with her. “It’s nae able to do much more than act like a basic dermal regenerator or laser scalpel. Better than nothin’ of course, but it can’t help with what Radoslawa’s goin’ through, nae wit her mixed biology.”

I cursed under my breath, though I wasn’t much surprised. Pony healing magic relied on using the user’s own mana channels and internal magic to accelerate the healing process, so long as the magics of the ponies involved were compatible. But without magic of her own, Radoslawa might as well have been a plastic doll for all the good it would do her. That we’d been able to accomplish anything with it at all was impressive.

There’s a good reason neither Sunset nor I ever even considered going into the medical field in Starfleet.

“If there’s nothing more we can do, I can arrange for an indefinite long-term room at the local hospital,” I said after a few moments of tense silence. “They should be able to accommodate whatever equipment you need to bring with you and continue monitoring for changes. I've spoken to their head nurse, Redheart, a few times now, and she's really good. Radoslawa will be in good hooves there.”

May snorted. “Nae sure how much she’ll be appreciatin’ it, since she’ll be unconscious.” The lines on her face softened a little. “Though it’s a good idea. Best we free up the bed and time spent for the rest of the patients.” She leaned back in her chair, and I could tell she was fighting the urge to slump altogether into slumber. “Little less work for all of us, as much as I hate ta say it.”

I weighed my next words carefully. “Sarah, you seem like you could use a few days off. You’re working yourself to exhaustion.”

A bitter laugh escaped her lips. “Aye… James said as much. Tried ta order me to take some time to myself. But I cannae do it.”

“Sarah,” I said more sharply. “You know better than I do the limits of the human body. You’re the CMO, but even CMOs need to take care of themselves. Other than Radoslawa, is there anyone else in serious danger?”

She took a while to respond, glaring into her tea the whole time. “No,” she grunted. “Nae really. Some’re doin’ worse than others, but no one’s nearly as bad as she is.”

“Then take some time to yourself.” I used my magic to open up a drawer in the desk and withdrew a bag of Equestrian bits. “Here. Be a tourist for a few days.” She opened her mouth to protest, but I pushed the bag into her hands. “I’ll make sure everyone else on your staff gets some time off too. A minimum of forty-eight hours without work, Doctor.”

She stared down at the bag before placing it into one of her pockets, a smile gracing her face for just a moment. “You and your sister both have become so much more assertive and forceful since the Academy.”

I chuckled and spread my wings briefly before tucking them back at my sides. “We’ve gone through quite a few changes since then.”

“That you have.” She drained her mug, and got up to set it in the replicator, watching it disappear in a twinkle of light before she came back over to me. To my surprise she actually hugged me, and it took me a moment before I was hugging her back. “I can’t tell you enough how glad I am that you and your sister convinced me to take this post.”

“Even with the excessive work?” I said with a slight grin.

“That’s just me being a stubborn old goat,” she said with a laugh, one brighter and more vivid than the rest had been. “Tryin’ to do as much as I can to save lives.” She let go of me and headed for the door, but turned back around just before reaching it. “Forty-eight hours. Not a minute more.”

“Enjoy yourself, Sarah,” I said, chuckling as she left. Despite the grimness of the circumstances, and especially despite the worry we were going to suffer over Ensign Banasiewicz, I found myself in better spirits than I had been before the shuttlecraft contacted us. Despite everything, there was still plenty of hope.

One of the other things we’d taken the time to do in the last month had been to establish a better communications network across Equus, with a number of government officials able to be reached as needed. Thus it didn’t take me long to negotiate Banasiewicz’s long-term care, and from there I turned to contacting the castle.

Of course it wasn’t long before I was stymied and frustrated again. “What do you mean, we don’t have an official ambassador to the Yaks?”

“Just that,” answered the pony whose name escaped me at the moment. “Princess Starlight negotiated a visit from Prince Rutherford to Ponyville last year, but while that’s led to more talks, the only ponies with any real experience outside of her would be those of the Crystal Empire.”

“...of course,” I murmured, shaking my head. I thanked them and closed the channel, then opened a new connection, one that I tried to use as sparingly as possible. “Shining.”

“Twily!” Shining’s voice came through after a few seconds, his excitement palpable. “It’s good to hear from you. We haven’t seen you since that visit with Preta last month. How has the research been going?”

“I know, I’ve been busy. As for the research, well, that's actually why I'm calling. Is Cadance available?”

“Yeah, one second.” I heard the sound of hoofsteps, followed by Shining’s voice calling, “Honey! It’s Twilight calling. She wants to talk to you!” A rustle came through, followed by a different, far more feminine voice. “Twilight, good to hear from you. What can I do for you?”

I paused to yawn, glad that there was no video feed. “Excuse me. Yes. I need a guide, someone who can help me deal with a visit to the Yakyakistani capital.”

“I’m surprised you’re not asking Starlight.”

“She’s too busy helping with the information campaign in Manehattan, or else I would.”

A note of laughter echoed through the voice channel. “So I’m your second choice, huh? Alright, that’s fair. I can be in Ponyville in an hour.”

Nodding, despite the fact she couldn’t see it, I said, “Thanks, Cadance. I appreciate it.”

“Don’t thank me yet. Yaks are extremely difficult to deal with. You’d better be ready for some silliness.”

“Will do,” I said as I closed the channel.

One hour later, right on the dot, the transportation circle lit up with its usual chime indicating an incoming passenger, and Cadance materialized in a pop and flash of light. “Twilight!” she blurted the instant she saw me, rushing forward to wrap her forelegs around me in a rather lopsided hug. “It’s good to see you.”

“Err, yeah, definitely,” I murmured as I gently pulled away. Smoothing the creases in my uniform, I gestured with a hoof to the others standing nearby. “These are Lieutenants Ayhan, Vohrn, and Blackford. They’ll be coming with us to Yakyakistan. Crew, this is Princess Mi Amore Cadenza of the Crystal Empire and today, our guide to the yaks.”

If Cadance was bothered by my reluctance to hug her back, she didn’t show it as she gave the others a quick bow. “A pleasure to meet you. Please, just call me Cadance.”

The others, who’d been standing at attention upon her arrival, relaxed their stances. “As you wish,” Ayhan replied, only slightly inclining her eyebrow.

“Cadenza, huh?” Vohrn said, a brief smirk touching his lips. “Sounds pretty similar to Cadeneza.”

“I’m sorry?” Cadance asked.

I sighed, resisting the urge to brush the bridge of my nose with my hoof. “That’s just a coincidence, Vohrn. The translator’s making her name in Ponish understandable for you.”

Cadance gave me a quizzical look. “I’m not sure I understand now.”

Sighing again, I groused, “Like I said. Translator quirks. I’ll explain later. Right now, let’s focus on the mission at hand.”

“You mean at hoof,” Cadance gently corrected as we followed the group outside towards the shuttlecraft.

“Fine, fine, at hoof,” I replied with a roll of my eyes. “Are there any protocols we need to be aware of for meeting with the yaks?”

She frowned as we boarded the shuttle, the two of us having to stand in the back as the hatch slid shut. “The yaks are somewhat aggressive creatures. They respect strength, and expect to see it in those they interact with.”

“Indeed, the little information we were able to gather suggested as much,” Ayhan commented with a slightly raised eyebrow. “According to records of Prince Rutherford’s visit with Starlight Glimmer, they were destructive and adversarial, up to and including a brief declaration of war.”

“Yeah, Starlight kinda messed that one up a bit,” Cadance agreed with a giggle. “Good thing she had Trixie and Ditzy around to mend relations.”

Vohrn snorted in amusement. “Sounds like the Klingons would love these yaks, that’s for sure.”

“Given the nature of the report we read,” Blackford said, an amused grin on his face, “I doubt that they were serious about that war declaration. What information we do have suggests Yakyakistan is far too weak to seriously threaten Equestria.”

Cadance shook her head. “Oh no, they were serious. Yaks don’t do things by half measures. If they say something, they mean it.”

“Preflight complete, ma’am,” Preta interjected, her expression serious and flat.

“Take us out, Lieutenant,” I ordered. “Nice and easy. We don’t want to spook them by popping up out of nowhere.”

“Aye, ma’am.”

Cadance leaned in to whisper into my ear. “Is something wrong between you two?”

I blinked in confusion for a moment before snickering and shaking my head. “No. We’re just on duty, so right now I’m her superior, not her girlfriend.”

“Ah.” Her eyes twinkled, her mouth creasing into a sly smile. “You ever let that dynamic slip into the bedroom?”

“Cadance!” I blurted, even as she burst into laughter.

She brushed my shoulder with a wing. “Oh come on, Twilight, I’m your sister-in-law. I’m required to tease you every so often.”

The mixture of amused stares from Vohrn and Blackford, embarrassed glances from Preta, and flat bemusement from Ayhan left me flustered. A note of irritation mixed with my command authority crossed into my voice. “I have a sister, remember? I know all about required teasing. But there’s a time and a place, and this isn’t it.”

I saw her roll her eyes, but her spine stiffened nevertheless. “Of course, Lieutenant.” Her smile tugged at the side of her mouth.

“Thank you,” I grumbled. Straightening out my uniform, I adjusted my posture in my chair. “So, you said the yaks respect strength. Are they expecting us to be aggressive with them when we speak?”

Cadance hummed under her breath. “Not quite,” she answered. “That’s likely to provoke them. But they will roll right over you if you let them.”

“Um, pardon the interruption,” Vohrn interjected, “But the yaks do know that we’re on the planet, right?”

“They do,” Cadance said, nodding. “They’re not a backwards people by any means, just… isolated. They have their own radio station, which they use for their own news and music. And we’ve been reaching out to them over the change in weather.”

“Ayhan,” I said, turning to face her. “Can you see if you can tap into the yak radio signal?”

“I shall,” Ayhan replied, futzing with her console for a moment.

“I’m not sure that’s the best idea,” Cadance said, her expression and body language abruptly tensing up. “Yak music is kind of—“

An utterly ear-splitting cacophony of sound that purported to be music blasted over the shuttle’s speakers, prompting everyone save Ayhan to cry out and cover their ears. “Loud!” Cadance finished, having to shout to be heard.

“Turn it off!” I barked. The sound cut out less than half a second later, leading to sighs of relief all around. “Ayhan…”

“Apologies, Lieutenant,” Ayhan said, a few wrinkles on her brow the only indication that she’d suffered the same level of ear pain as the rest of us. “The signal required substantial boosting to make it through the dampening field.”

I shook my head. “No, I should’ve realized that. Still, have the shuttle record the broadcast. The Federation Archives will love it. Citizens' ears, however, maybe not so much.”

Ayhan nodded. “Aye, ma’am.”

“We’re nearing the Yakyakistani capital, ma’am,” Preta said. “Entering range of the dampening field. I’ll have to rely on visuals from here.”

I sat further forward in my chair to look outside through the shuttle’s viewports. The Yaket mountain range loomed below us, the peaks covered in thick layers of snow and ice. A series of clouds blocked some of the higher peaks from view, no doubt adding to the snowpack.

Then as we lowered in altitude, the Yakyakistani capital became visible. It was hard to even see it as a city at first, with the only real sign of technology being the radio tower poking up from a scaffold near the center. The rest was a series of yurts, log cabins, and other such buildings, most of which were sunk into the ground to help preserve heat. A massive wooden wall topped by lit torch sconces surrounded the capital, with a single, well-guarded gate being the only obvious way in or out. Two impressive statues flanked the gate, each one depicting a yak soldier in full regalia, a shield in one hoof and a huge torch in the other.

“Take us down just outside,” I ordered, waiting for the shuttle to descend, till eventually it settled down onto the snow with an audible crunch. “Good work, Lieutenant. Remain with the shuttle. If the yaks look like they’re going to attack it, just take off, understood?”

Preta frowned at me, her ears flattening against her skull. “Aye,” she said, a feline growl brushing her words.

“Alright, everyone, let’s depart,” I said, pressing the button to open the hatch, which lowered to become a ramp.

We had barely stepped onto the ramp when two yaks stepped into view, standing very intently at the bottom of the ramp. Unlike the dogs, they didn’t point spears at us, but they didn’t need to, not with those massive horns. “You!” one of them snarled. “Pony! What is meaning of this? What is this metal carriage?”

“I’m Lieutenant Twilight Sparkle,” I replied, “Representing the United Federation of Planets. This is— “

“Answer question!” the yak thundered, smashing his hooves into the ground hard enough to kick up a cloud of snow.

Okay. They wanted to be all up in our faces? I’d show them.

I deliberately stomped up to his face, the bit of height I’d gained from Ascension just enough to let me look up into his eyes without feeling like a child. I also spread my wings for good measure. “This is my ship,” I snapped. “We’re here on business, to see Prince Rutherford.”

He leaned in and snorted quite intentionally, sending his hair and mine flying, but I refused to even twitch in response. After staring him down for a few more seconds, he finally stepped back and gave a slight nod. “This way. Prince Rutherford want to see you.”

“Thank you,” I grunted, though I didn’t move until both yaks turned around to approach the gate.

“Charming,” Blackford quipped.

Cadance’s laughter warmed the air as we disembarked from the shuttlecraft. “Oh, trust me, that was tame.”

We paused momentarily before the grand gate, staring up at the statues. “These are most impressive,” Ayhan said. She aimed her tricorder at them, but the device made a few error bleeps before she stuffed it back into its holster on her belt. “Though I am unable to analyze their composition.”

“Yak statue made of finest and strongest bronze!” one of the yak guards said, pride in every word. “Me helped put it in place!”

“Bronze?” Vohrn said as he peered closer. “If I didn’t know better I’d said they were made of wood. They look carved, not molded.”

The two yaks shook with laughter and stomped their hooves into the dirt a few times. “You funny! Yak statue not made of wood!”

Blackford arched an eyebrow. “Then how did you make the statues?”

“Is yak secret.”

“Very secret. Yak no tell outsiders!”

I was about to reply when the guard turned, opened the gate, and resumed his previous posture, clearly not intending on making further conversation.

“Come!” the first yak yelled from the front of the group. “We see Prince Rutherford now!”

Despite it's rather rough-hewn design, inside the city walls things were as bustling as any major city back in Equestria might be. New huts being built, others repaired. A number of yaks stood around what looked to be a marketplace, each of them hawking their wares to passers by.

Still, like the other races we had previously visited, our presence did not go unnoticed for long. Fortunately, the eyes I saw looking our way were equal parts curious, excited, and suspicious. A vast improvement over the Diamond Dogs, at least.

“Fascinating,” Blackford said quietly to me. “The architecture around here is reminiscent of ancient Mongolia, during the times they roamed the steppes of central Asia.”

“It’s funny, isn’t it?” I murmured. “It’s another one of those uncanny similarities between Earth and Equus. They always kept to themselves in the past, so contact with Equestria has been minimal over the years.”

“Is that why they’re speaking with broken grammar?” Vohrn asked. “Because they don’t know Ponish that well?”

“No, they can speak Ponish just fine,” Cadance said. “They just don’t like to mince words.”

Eventually we reached a larger yurt, near the base of the radio tower. Besides being the largest structure we had seen so far, this one was extensively decorated too. Flags and other banners hung from the edge of the roof, and a large, intricately patterned quilt covered what looked to be the main door. “Prince Rutherford!” the yak leading us bellowed, punching the door with a hoof.

“What?! Me very busy fixing radio!” thundered a different voice as the door flew open. A new yak poked his face out. He looked very similar to most of the other yaks we had seen so far, with a tied beard and a heavy quilt coming up from his back onto his neck. The only things that gave him away as the Prince were the detailed marks painted onto his horns, and the sizable green gemstone set into the onyx crown on his head.

He stared at us for a moment, his eyes wide as he took in the humanoids, then his gaze focused on Cadance. “Cadance!” he roared, pointing at us with a hoof. “Who these? Why outsiders here?”

“Prince Rutherford, a pleasure,” Cadance said, her trademark smirk coming into play, even as her tone changed to be as deliberate and polite as I might expect from Celestia. “I’m just acting as ambassador for our visitors from the stars. The one actually leading us is Twilight Sparkle here.”

“Your highness,” I said with a nod.

He glared back at me, steam hissing from his nostrils. “You also alicorn,” he commented. “That make four alicorns now.”

“Er, five, your Highness,” I replied, bowing slightly again. “My sister, she is also an alicorn.”

“Five alicorns?” His eyes went back to Cadance. “Why so many?”

“It's... a long story, Prince,” Cadance chuckled. “I'll fill you in another time, I promise.”

He seemed to accept that, at least for the moment. “You from spaceship?” he asked, turning back to me.

“That’s right.” I gestured to my officers. “These are Lieutenants Blackford, Ayhan, and Vohrn. We’re investigating a dampening field we detected in the city.”

Despite the way he spoke, Rutherford was clearly an intelligent yak. His frown deepened for a moment before he repeated, “Dampening field,” under his breath. “That why radio not work?”

“Most likely, your highness,” Ayhan answered. “Though as the field is disabling our tricorders, we cannot be certain.”

“More importantly,” I added, “it sprung up very recently. We’re hoping that it means one of the terminals we’ve been looking for is around here.”

He glared at me a moment before turning around and heading back inside. “Come. Sit. We drink and you explain!”

Glancing briefly at Cadance, who shrugged with a smile, we followed him inside. The yurt was well lit, with plenty of pillows lining a circle of carpets in the main room. A large jug made from fired clay sat in the center of the circle, along with a number of pewter mugs. Rutherford, showing the deft dexterity of the yaks despite their size, easily picked up the jug and poured us each some of its contents.

“Here!” he said, hoofing one to each of us in turn as we sat down on the pillows. “Is best yak vodka. Me brew from potatoes in me own garden.”

As I watched everyone clink their mugs together, I was very thankful in that moment that I had insisted that all away teams carry anti-intoxicants to their med kits for just this kind of situation. I had little doubt that this stuff would be way more potent than any of the cider we had been given by the Ponyville locals. Given my own past habits, I stopped short of actually imbibing myself.

Prince Rutherford growled in frustration when he saw that. “What you wait for? You no appreciate yak hospitality?” The ripple of anger in his voice gave me ample warning of what might happen should I refuse.

“No no, it's just—” I began to say before stopping at his insistent glare. “Ah, hell with it.” I grabbed my mug and knocked it back in one big swig. The initial bite of alcohol burst into my mouth, leaving a growing warmth in its wake as I swallowed. I tensed, expecting the afterburn to kick my flank, but instead what I got was... vanilla? and juniperberry? Maybe? I leaned back and looked at the mug, trying to hide my shock. “Huh. that's pretty good.”

“Hah! Rutherford like pony with good taste. You drink like yak too!” Rutherford cheered, before doing the same with his vodka. “Is good vodka. Flavored with yak-grown vanilla bean.”

The others followed my lead, and the reactions among them were… mixed. Vohrn seemed barely able to stomach it, coughing up a storm, while Blackford let out a soft whistle, chuckling to himself. Cadance seemed to force a smile while trying not to scrunch her muzzle in the most adorable way possible, while Ayhan appeared entirely unaffected. “It is satisfactory,” she pronounced.

“Good!” Rutherford refilled our mugs, but he didn’t drain his in one gulp this time. Instead he savored it with a single sip. “Now, explain why you here.”

“Well,” I said as I set my mug down. “Like I said before, what drew us here was the dampening field we detected in this area. If I may ask, Prince, how much are you aware of what we’ve been doing since we arrived on Equus?”

Rutherford flashed me a toothy grin, his beard bouncing. “Me listen to radio, know about pony princess speech in Manehattan. Sun going bad.” He glanced up at the ceiling. “It getting colder. Crops fail soon. Yaks not afraid though! Yaks strong. Yaks survive!” He thumped the ground, making the yurt shake.

“You're quite right. The sun is, as you say, going bad," Cadance said. "That's why Twilight and her crew are here though. they're trying to fix the sun.”

“Fix sun? Sun not machine.” Rutherford frowned, then narrowed his eyes at me. “How you fix sun?”

I flashed Cadance an annoyed glare. Explaining the minutiae of the artificial satellites to anyone would take hours. Hours that I didn't want to spend at the moment either. “From what we've discovered so far,” I quickly interjected, “there are a number of ancient computers scattered about the planet that hold clues to the sun issue. We’ve located them in a dragon cave and in a diamond dog kennel so far. We think there’s likely another one near here somewhere. It might be responsible for the dampening field.”

Prince Rutherford stared at me quietly for a moment, as if studying me, before knocking back his second mug of vodka. “Me not sure me understand everything pony say,” he admitted. He abruptly tossed the mug down and crushed it under his hoof. “But yaks not stupid! We send best yak daughter to ship, to help space visitors.”

“That’s right,” I said. I scoured my memory and then nodded. “Yona.”

“Yes, Yona,” he agreed. “Yona one of smartest yaks. She help yaks uncover historical yak settlement underneath capital before she leave.”

That got our attention. “What kind of settlement?” Blackford asked.

Rutherford snorted, filling the air with steam. “Ancient. Yaks build many settlements in mountains. Yaks once nomads, not build true cities, but villages yak travel to with seasons. Then yaks learn agriculture from ponies, and settle down. Yaks much happier with true cities!”

“Then what you discovered was one of your older nomadic villages,” Ayhan noted.

Rutherford gave her a nod. “Yes. Old yaks not as forward thinking as yaks now. Every year they smash entire village, rebuild from ground up! Many old settlements under this city. Yona discover oldest.”

“Wait, wait, you destroyed your villages every year?” Vohrn said. “Why?”

“Yickslurbertfest!” Rutherford cheered at the top of his lungs, loud enough that Cadance and I had to press our ears to our heads to keep from the sound hurting. “Is most important yak holiday. Yaks love smashing! So yaks smash in celebration!” Rutherford had the good grace to blush, if only slightly. “But, yaks realize destroying entire village in Yickslurbertfest foolish, so yaks stop doing that when yaks build cities. Now yaks only smash ground. And leftover wood yaks not able to use.”

“That is… a logical decision,” Ayhan said with a slightly raised eyebrow. Only years of living with a Vulcan mother helped me hear the tiniest note of incredulity that slipped into her voice. “May we ask how Yona discovered the old settlement?”

“Yona a smart yak. Always curious. Yona always digging, looking for things,” Rutherford said proudly. “She do much more digging when we hear of spaceship falling from stars. She found old settlement just before we send her to be volunteer. Old settlement very deep, below many layers.”

“Then we’ll likely have to climb down,” Blackford murmured.

I looked Rutherford in the eye. “Can you show us?”

“Yes!” Rutherford leapt to his hooves, causing the rest of us to rise as well. “Follow me. Me will lead you. Then once you see settlement, you join yaks for dinner at fire pit!”

“That would be lovely, thank you,” Cadance said as we followed him out of the yurt. She hung back briefly and poked at me with her wing. “You should have Preta join us. She shouldn’t be stuck inside the shuttle all by herself.”

“I would if I could,” I sighed. “Starfleet policy requires I leave someone to guard the shuttlecraft. Since she’s the pilot and I need the rest here, she’s the one who has to do it.”

“No offense, but given the situation I doubt anyone from this Starfleet would know you parked a shuttle alone for a few hours.”

Damn it, she was right, but I also knew I couldn't say that. “I know. But we have procedures for a reason, and they need to be followed.”

“Alright, alright. I shouldn't be telling you how to do your job anyway.” Cadance sighed. “By the way, are you sure there’s nothing wrong between you two?”

I stopped in my tacks, glaring at her. “Yes, Cadance, I’m sure. Preta and I are doing just fine.”

“Really. Because it doesn’t look that way from my perspective.”

A whinny of irritation slipped out of me before I was able to reply, “You’re not getting the whole story. Like I said before, we’re on duty. We’re Starfleet officers first, our relationship second.”

“And how often have you spent time with her lately, hmm?” Cadance raised her eyebrow sharply.

I glanced back at the others, who’d kept following Rutherford. “Look, we can discuss this later. Right now we’ve got more important things to do.”

“Fine. But we’re going to discuss it,” Cadance declared.

I ignored her as I focused on catching up to the others, trying not to fume over this absurd interruption. What was she even talking about? Things between me and Preta were just fine. Sure, we didn’t see each other much, but it wasn’t as if we were the only ones busy. None of us had put in anything less than a ten hour work day since we arrived on Equus, and between shuttle flights, shuttle maintenance, and my own duties, we only saw each other for dinner sometimes, and for a few minutes before we'd collapse into bed for a few hours' sleep.

So maybe we hadn’t spent a lot of time together lately, but that didn’t mean there were any problems. Even if half the words out of Preta’s mouth to me these days was, “Aye, ma’am.”

After all, if something was wrong, Preta would tell me.

Wouldn’t she?

Shaking my head to clear the thoughts, I hurried to the front just in time to hear Prince Rutherford exclaim, “Here!” and halt in his tracks. He pointed one huge hoof at a smaller yurt, one that looked like it had been hastily constructed to provide little more than shelter from the elements. “Inside, stairs carved in rock down to older settlements.”

“Great, more stairs into the abyss,” Vohrn muttered. “Because we didn’t get tired of that with the diamond dogs.”

“Thank you for leading us here, Prince Rutherford,” I said while silencing Vohrn with a very pointed gesture while the prince had his back to us.“Will you be accompanying us down?”

Rutherford stomped a hoof into the ground, causing us to have to catch our footing. “Of course!” He turned to face us. “Me not let outsiders wander around yak settlement by themselves. Might smash important yak artifacts!”

“We definitely wouldn’t do that on— “ Blackford began, before he stopped briefly as Rutherford flashed him a furious glare. “— purpose.”

“Not point! Must be careful. Yaks already smash one old object. No want smash more!”

I stepped in before things could escalate.“Of course, we’re happy to follow your lead, your highness. And yes, we’ll be respectful of anything we come across.”

“Hmph. Pony need not call me highness. Pony is princess, yes?” Rutherford said, giving me a scrutinizing glare.

My cheeks bloomed red. “Err, no, not exactly,” I said. “Technically I can’t be a princess and in Starfleet at the same time. It’s a… regulation.”

He scowled at me for several long moments before nodding in apparent understanding. “Me understand. Yaks who move to pony cities grow and prosper, but they also not forget yak traditions. Me respect you greatly for this.” Before I could respond he turned back to the thinner yurt and kicked the door open. “Come!”

He grabbed a torch in his mouth and lit it before securing it in a rather ingenious sconce of sorts that he attached to his left horn. He walked down the revealed stairs. They were rough hewn, carved from glacial ice with wooden planks tacked on to provide traction. I could see Ayhan and Blackford taking it all in carefully, no doubt wishing their tricorders functioned.

Things got progressively colder and damper the further we went. We followed behind Rutherford as closely as we could, but after a rotted piece of wood broke under my hoof and nearly tripped me, Cadance and I added light from our horns as well.

The base of the stairs opened up into a larger cavern, the ground littered with the wreckage of dozens of old yurts. Most of it was rotted nearly into little more than soggy dust, though some parts that were partly or mostly trapped in the ice were relatively well preserved. More remnants could be seen in the surrounding walls, crushed over time by the ice and stone mixed within the layers of time. What wasn't covered in ice looked to be a granite or hard stone of some kind, which continued further down into the darkness.

“This geology is incredible,” Blackford said. “I know it's cold here, but I wouldn't have thought you could build an entire city on top of a glacier.”

“Glacier move into area over time, crush old settlements,” Rutherford said. “We at edge of city above us. Most of city build on proper stone and soil, where Yak farms are.”

It was impressively cold down here, even through our winter gear, and I found myself casting a warming spell just to keep my joints from seizing up. “So how did Yona know this cave was down here, then?”

“Yona didn’t. Yona found it by accident,” Rutherford admitted. “But once she found, Yona told all yaks, so yaks help her dig much faster.” He gestured forward. “This way.”

We continued to walk through the cavern, which was shored up by freshly cut wooden support beams every so often. This wasn’t quite like the diamond dog caves… Vohrn was right, climbing this many stairs again wasn't fun at all. But the further we went, the more convinced I became that these caves were entirely different from the ones we encountered in the diamond dogs' kennel. The winding path Rutherford was leading us down was carved not by technology, but by immense physical forces and the inexorable march of time. I wondered how many past settlements had been built around here before the glacier slowly chewed them all up.

After a while I noticed the amount of debris began to shrink, and the downward slope of the path began to feel almost uniform by comparison. Finally we reached what looked to be the end of the road – a fairly large cavern that had been clearly carved with more precise tools than anything the yaks had at their disposal. “This deepest settlement,” Rutherford pronounced, gesturing with the torch on his horns. “Yaks have tried, but yaks not able to dig further. But, yaks find many ancient things here.”

“Lieutenant,” Ayhan said, pointing to the ceiling, where something was faintly glowing.

I peered up at the glow, and then touched it with my magic. “Great work, Ayhan,” I said after a moment, grinning. “That’s definitely just like what we found at the other two sites. Meaning there must be a terminal here somewhere.”

“Uh, ma’am?” Vohrn called out from across the room. “I don’t think you’re going to have to search very far.”

“What?”

I looked over where he was standing, and my blood froze in my veins.

There was a terminal alright. Shaped similarly to the dragon one and the diamond dog one, it was just laying there, in the open, nothing blocking access to it.

And it had been smashed to pieces. Wreckage littered the ground, along with the shards of the terminal’s monitor.

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” I murmured as I approached the console, picking up a few pieces of debris to examine.

“Oh, yes, that artifact Rutherford spoke of,” Rutherford said with a shrug. “Artifact make loud noises, say many words yaks not understand, startle yaks. So yaks smash it.”

“That is most unfortunate,” Ayhan said, crouching down to examine the wreckage more closely.

“Now what do we do?” Blackford asked.

“Danielle?” I whispered. “Status report.”

“They’re still out there, ma’am,” she replied. Her accent came through thicker than normal, which she only did when she was nervous. “Still scanning.”

“Damned Orions,” Zhidar grumbled angrily, albeit at a quiet volume. “How much longer must we hide like rats?”

"As long as we must," Luna said over her shoulder. She had been about to leave the bridge for her quarters when the long-range scanners picked up Dessan's ships in the sector, sending us into a mad scramble for a hiding spot while reducing the ship's power signature as low as possible, which included shutting down the turbolifts.

Absent their exchange, the bridge was eerily quiet, and dark. The bridge lights were dimmed to minimum, leaving us all bathed in the faint blue glow of the few consoles we couldn't afford to turn off entirely. Even the viewscreen was dimmed, offering us little more than a dim view of the cavern we had nestled the ship into inside of an asteroid field.

It’d been over a month since we last saw them, but Dessan had finally caught up to us, and I wasn’t foolish enough to tangle with them a second time, even if the ship was in better shape. No way was I letting him take another member of my crew.
Not this time. Not unless we had to.

“Orion bastards,” I heard Rodriguez mutter. “Leave us alone.”

“If the metallic deposits in these asteroids do their job, they will, Lieutenant. We just have to wait them out.”

Silence fell again. Every second that ticked by on the small chronometer built into my chair display felt like an hour. Waiting... waiting... praying the sensors didn't light up.

“Captain,” Danielle abruptly said, drawing my attention. “They’re moving off, going to warp.”

No one cheered, not yet. We weren’t so foolish. “Any sign they left anything behind? Mines, a probe?”

“I can run a short burst scan…”

“Give it a few more seconds first, then do it.”

Danielle waited, then triggered the scan, the audible ping on her console sounding as loud as a gunshot on the otherwise quiet bridge. The tension hung thick in the air like a dense fog. No one moved even a millimeter until that scan came back. “No, ma’am,” she finally said. “We’re clear.”

“Alright,” I replied, letting out a slight sigh of relief. “Bring main power back online. Mister Rodriguez, soon as you can, plot a new course and get us out of here. We’re going to have to shake them off our trail for a while.”

“I will be using a few new tricks I picked up from reading old logs from Travis Mayweather, ma’am,” Rodriguez said with a nod. “We will not be seeing those Orions again for a while.”

“We’d better not,” I said as the lights came back on, bringing the bridge to full illumination. The thrumming of the warp core resumed, reverberating through the deck plating. “We’ve got a hell of a ways to go yet.”

I watched the viewscreen as the ship left the bounds of the asteroid and negotiated an unusual course directly perpendicular to the plane of the system’s ecliptic before engaging the warp engines. As the blobs of starlight streamed past, I rose from my chair. “I’ll be in my quarters. You have the bridge, Commander Zhidar.”

I’d barely taken a few hoofsteps towards the turbolift before Luna joined me. “Deck seven,” I said as we boarded it.

“Deck ten,” she intoned, then turned to me. “If I may say, Sunset Shimmer, I am proud of you for finding a way to evade the Orions this time.”

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t eager to tangle with Dessan again, even if he is down a ship,” I murmured.

“Even so.” Her eyes twinkled. “Would you care to join me in Ten-Forward? I do not wish to dine alone.”

I chuckled. “Sorry, but I think I’ll pass.”

“Oh?”

I ruffled the feathers of my wings, looking away briefly before I replied. “Oh, it’s just, it’s my birthday today, and I don’t want Pinkie Pie throwing me a party. You saw what happened last week when Ensign Hallett let slip that it was his birthday.”

“Indeed, it was most impressive how she summoned party decorations from seemingly nowhere.” Her eyes twinkled again as the turbolift came to a halt. “Very well. If anypony understands a desire for solitude, it is I. Good evening, Sunset.”

“Mmhmm.” I left the turbolift, the doors swishing shut. I rolled my eyes when I realized I’d failed to specify the section, so I had quite a ways to walk around the saucer before I reached my quarters. I keyed in the pad to open them as I passed through.

For some reason the lights were off, which was odd. Usually they came on as soon as I entered the room. I sighed, hoping we didn’t have another power malfunction. “Computer,” I grumbled. “Lights.”

POP!

“SURPRISE!”

I nearly leapt out of my skin as a wave of what felt like confetti and streamers rained down around me. The lights came up a moment later, revealing Wattson, the rest of the senior staff save for Zhidar, and Pinkie Pie, along with a smattering of other ponies I recognized, like Fluttershy, Braeburn, Cloudchaser, and somehow, Luna too.

To my dismay they burst into a round of the birthday song, while continuing to fill the air with debris from streamers and more party favors than I could count.

“Happy birthday, Captain Sunset!” Pinkie chirped as she approached me carrying a large sheet cake bedecked with candles on a platter. “Were you surprised? Were you? Huh, huh?”

I let out a small groan and gave Luna a glare, prompting the other alicorn to snicker. “You planned this,” I accused her.

“Of course,” Luna said. “Though the Orions nearly caused us to cancel. Fortunately, Miss Wattson was able to reprogram the turbolift to give everyone enough time to get in place once it was clear the danger had passed.”

Sighing, I leaned down and blew out the candles on the cake, which earned me a round of applause. “It is unfortunate we could not be having this party in Ten-Forward,” Rodriguez said as he handed me a glass of champagne. “It would’ve been good for crew morale.”

I took the glass and drank, enjoying the taste. “Yeah, I would’ve said no,” I grumbled. “I really didn’t want a party.”

“Sorry Sunny, but we weren’t letting you get away without one,” Wattson said with a grin.

“I um, I hope you’re not mad at us,” Fluttershy said, wincing away from me.

Rolling my eyes again, I answered, “No… no, not really. Just a little annoyed. If Twilight was here, she'd be the first to tell you that I never got too worked up about my own birthday. At least, not after I turned eighteen.” I smiled at her. “But I appreciate the gesture.”

Cloudchaser, the one I’d been most surprised to see, came over to me next. “Flitter, however, would have been begging you to have a party,” she said, a pained smile on her face. “I know we haven't spoken a great deal since... but, well,” she straightened up and looked me in the eyes. “I don't blame you, Captain. None of us do. We know it's never going to be easy, but we're determined to see this through for her.”

My own returning smile was strained, but I nodded to her nevertheless. “To Flitter, then,” I said, raising my glass.

“To Flitter.”

Our glasses clinked.

“Speaking of people who ought to be here,” Wattson said as she helped Pinkie set the cake down on a nearby table and begin slicing pieces to pass around. “Jackie would love this too. She kept telling me she wanted to throw one in Ten-Forward for you this year.”

“Yeah, she would for sure,” I murmured, clenching my eyes shut as a pang ran through me. “I hope she’s okay. I miss her pretty badly.”

“You and me both.” She handed me the first slice of cake. “But I’m sure she’s fine. She’s a survivor. It’d take some pretty rough shit to bring her down.”

I found myself taking a bite even though I wasn’t sure I wanted it, expecting it to taste like any other replicated cake. To my shock, the taste was far better. “Oh my god,” I moaned as I took another bite. “This is amazing!”

“Heehee, thanks, Captain!” Pinkie said, flashing me a huge grin.

“Seriously,” I said between bites, “What's your secret? Forget replicated cakes, this might be the best cake I've ever had.”

“Just some ingredients I brought along from Sugarcube Corner.” She leaned in and played at whispering in my ear. “I'd tell you, but then it wouldn't be a secret.”

“Ha!” I laughed. “Fair enough, I guess. That’s that bakery you work at, right?”

“Yup! The best bakery in Ponyville, probably in all of Equestria!” Pinkie beamed. “Mr. and Mrs. Cake, they run the place, but I work there pretty often. I’ll take you when we get back. There's so much stuff you have to try. Oh! Like these chimicherrychangas; they are so good.”

“Well you did a great job, Pinkie, damn,” I said as I gobbled down another bite.

She flashed me another grin. “So, who’s Jackie? I know a Jack. Well, I know an Applejack.”

I nearly spit out the cake in surprise. “Wait, what?”

“Did Ah hear ya talkin’ about mah cousin?” Braeburn said, sauntering over.

“Cousin?” I repeated in a squeak.

If she noticed my distress, Pinkie didn’t show it. “Yeah, Applejack is his cousin. And I think maybe one of mine? It’s reaaaaaallly hard to say. Anyway she’s a farmer in Ponyville, owns Sweet Apple Acres.”

“Best Apple orchard north of Appleloosa,” Braeburn added. “Ah kinda wish she could’ve come along, but when Ah asked her she said she could do more stayin’ behind.”

It took a moment for me to find my voice, having not expected to hear the name that the Isekai owning Sunset had brought up to me. “Uuuh, right, right,” I said, a nervous laugh escaping me. “A-anyway, the Jackie we’re talking about is Lieutenant Commander Jacqueline Cadeneza. She’s, err… she’s my girlfriend.”

“Ooooooh, I didn’t know you had a marefriend!” Pinkie said, fluttering her eyes at me while nudging me with one shoulder.

“Well, it’s pretty complicated. She’s not here right now. She left the ship right before we… crashed.”

Pinkie, thankfully, seemed to get the hint, because she switched to giving me a brief hug. “You seem like you miss her.”

“Pretty badly, yeah,” I admitted, my voice a little shaky. I pulled out of the hug and flashed her a smile that didn’t quite reach my eyes. “But hey, she’s probably doing better than the rest of us, since she’s not stuck on this ship.” I swallowed nervously. “I hope.”

Pinkie nodded sagely. “Then let’s make sure this party is super extra special good for you! Computer, hit the music!”

A snazzy dance beat with a Spanish guitar filled the room, and a few of the party attendees started to dance together, in particular Rodriguez, who whooped at the music. “This reminds me so much of flamenco! But the tempo, it is faster than I am being used to.”

“Heehee, I thought it would be great for dancing,” Pinkie said as she moved to dance in turn with Rodriguez. Everyone else made room for the two sashaying about, and I had to admit, the sight of it got me grinning.

“Señora, you honor me with this dance,” Rodriguez said with a wink at Pinkie.

“Awww, you flatterer, you,” Pinkie giggled, winking back.

“Um, Pinkie… should you really be doing all of, er, that?” Fluttershy said as the two of them began dancing side by side. “You're a married mare.”

“I know that, you silly filly!” Pinkie shouted back as she tried to follow Rodriguez's footwork. “You really need to let your mane down once in a while. C'mon, this is fun!”

Rodriguez’s chuckle rippled through the air as he took Pinkie and, in a surprising show of dexterity on her part, spun her around and dipped her like he might any humanoid dancer. “Do not be worrying, Fluttershy, I am not trying to steal Miss Pie from anyone. It is just a dance.”

Pinkie rose from his arms and spun around him, her mane and tail flying with the movement. “Althouuuuugh,” she said, her eyes slipping into a flirty gaze as she moved up to poke him in the chest with a hoof. “If anyone here could…”

I watched Fluttershy turn about as red as a beet while Rodriguez and Pinkie resumed their impromptu duet. I left them to their dancing and wandered over to a couple of the party guests that were isolating themselves by the windows, the two I’d been more than a little shocked to see: Maia and Doctor Selar.

Maia, at least, seemed to be less irritated by being present and more like she didn’t know what to do with herself. “Captain,” she greeted me with a nod.

“Kelia, you don’t have to stay if you’re not comfortable,” I replied. “I promise I won’t be offended.”

The use of her first name, so rarely spoken even by Twilight, caught her off-guard just as I hoped it might. “Err, ma’am, it’s not… not that. Just, usually I only attend… Twilight’s parties.”

Maybe it was the constant presence of other ponies making me resort to old habits, or the flowing drink that carried with it the warm buzz of alcohol that wasn’t synthehol, but it took a small effort of will to resist the urge to give her a half hug or a nuzzle. Not that she’d appreciate it even if I had. “You miss her.”

A wan half-smile briefly broke through her cold facade. “Yeah. She’s my friend… one of the only people I can actually talk to.” The smile vanished. “No offense, Captain.”

“None taken.” I thought, for a moment, about broaching the subject of Ishihara. She’d been the closest thing Maia had to a mother, and it still bothered me that I no longer saw her laughing face in Ten-Forward or on the bridge or anywhere else throughout the ship. And it made me wish I’d taken the time to get to know her better too.

But I did know Maia well enough to know that doing so would be actively harmful to her right now. Maia had proven herself one hell of an officer already; doubly so since stepping up to take Ishihara's place. The last thing she needed was someone undoing all of her progress by trying to help her in a traditional sense that didn’t work with someone like her. Especially since I was no counselor. Maia had a core of strength, but that core came from years of sustained trauma and only partially-resolved closure.

That she even offered that brief half-smile told me that deep down, she was doing ok. Maybe not perfect, but I had faith she'd get there in her own way.

“Alright,” I said. “Carry on.”

Carting my drink in my magic, I moved over to the other isolated person in the room, Doctor Selar. I’d warmed up to her since my initial reaction upon learning she’d been posted to the Phoenix. Somewhere in the back of my mind I still recalled the Vulcan who’d been far less kind to a lost and scared foal on her first day on an alien planet, and nearly got her face burned off as a result. But holding that kind of grudge against her was pretty foolish as an adult, especially since I’d long since learned she was just being another fairly typical Vulcan when it came to her attitudes towards me that day.

Still, I thanked my lucky stars once again that Mother had been present back then as well.

“Doctor,” I said, raising my glass to her. “I’m surprised to see you here.”

Selar arched an eyebrow and did not reciprocate my gesture with her drink. “Indeed, however, Commander Wattson impressed upon the senior staff that attendance was… highly encouraged.” She cast a look over at Rodriguez and Pinkie, who were now dancing to a different piece of music, one with a lot more clapping involved. “I confess uncertainty as to why.”

“For what it’s worth, Doctor, you don’t have to stay if you don’t want to,” I said. I sipped from my drink. “Though I do appreciate that you’re here. It’s a thoughtful gesture.”

Her brow furrowed by a few millimeters, but otherwise she showed no reaction to that. “You are the Captain,” she said, as if that explained anything.

I frowned for a moment, then moved over to her other side. “You know, Doctor, if we can drop the ranks for a moment… I hope you don’t think I’m still upset at you over the circumstances of our first meeting.”

Most wouldn’t have noticed, but my time with Mother and other Vulcans taught me enough to see how her hand tensed ever so slightly on her glass, the minute adjustments to the crease of her jawline, the way her cheeks took on the slightest touch of green. “It would be illogical to presume such. That event occurred seventeen years ago. You are not the child— er, foal, you were.”

“No, I’m not,” I replied gently. “Believe me, I still cringe a bit looking back at how young me approached things.” I paused for a moment, chewing over my next words. “Selar... I realize this past month has been especially nerve-wracking for you. Our mission's been turned upside down, Doctor May's not here to help, and on top of it all you're stuck with me as the Captain now. I don't need to be a vulcan to know this is less than ideal for you.” I shifted on my hooves and gave her a pointed look. “I'm not asking to be your best friend overnight, but I sense there's some lingering tension between us, and I'd like to work that out with you.”

Selar didn’t respond for so long I began to think she was giving me the silent treatment, until finally she said, “If you are asking me to be direct with you, Sunset, then understand I am… dissatisfied with my actions that day. I believed you to be a curiosity. I did not respect your sapience as I should have.”

It took a measure of self-control not to laugh. “From your perspective, I was a pastel talking horse that shot fire and threw stuff around with my mind like a crazed animal. I don’t blame you for the way you reacted.” Despite my self-control, I still smiled. “As for me, I was a quivering little ball of rage and fear that day. I never once thought about how the other people in the room might be perceiving me, and for years I just remembered you as that mean jerk who kept trying to scan me for no reason.”

I caught the ever-so-slight wince on Selar’s part. “But I don’t think that now,” I added quickly. “You were doing your job, and your attitude was logical given the circumstances.”

“Was it?” Selar whispered. Her eyes widened ever so slightly after she spoke. “Forgive my impertinence. It appears my emotional control is proving difficult to maintain.”

“I’m the last person on this ship who’ll judge you for that,” I said gently. “But like I said, I'm all for working out whatever tension still sits between us. Doesn't have to be right now either. But I'd like it if we can start fresh, and build a healthy working relationship.”

“I agree, a restart of sorts would be beneficial for us both.”

“Good,” I said with a nod. “And to start, I’ll add that if you’d prefer to return to your quarters, that’s perfectly fine by me. I won’t make anyone stay.”

Selar turned away from me, but I could still sense the way she was fighting with her emotional control, feeling something tense underneath her facade of detachment. “I… appreciate that, Sunset. Thank you,” she murmured.

Then she set her drink down and walked out, causing a few other guests to glance her way as the doors hissed shut behind her.

“Awww, is something wrong?” Pinkie said as she trotted over, her mane seeming to deflate a tad as she looked forlornly at the door. “Is she okay?”

“She’s fine, Pinkie, don’t worry about it. It’s just… Vulcan things.”

“Okie dokie loki!” Pinkie chirped. Her expression remained concerned for just a brief moment before it wildly shifted and she looked up at me with excitement, her hair popping back into place. “Oooh, Oooh, Sunset, Sunset, I just remembered! I gotta tell you about something!”

As most of the party-goers looked over with interest, I finished my drink and went to grab a refill. “Oh yeah? What’s that, Pinkie?”

“Sooooo, I was searching the computer for music ideas, and I came across a bunch of music that sounded a lot like heartsongs.”

“Heartsongs?” Something about that sounded vaguely familiar. “What do you mean?”

Pinkie reached into her mane and pulled out her PADD, tapping it a few times. “Let’s see… ah, here we go. Stardate 2398.3. U.S.S. Enterprise incident report labeled Subspace Rhapsody. Computer, play first— “

“Belay that!” I interrupted, my blood half frozen. I snatched the PADD away from her and glanced down at the screen. “Pinkie, these reports are supposed to be classified! How did you get this?”

Wattson, glancing over my shoulder at the PADD, said, “What was that from, 2258? Yeah, a whole ton of stuff from that time period was declassified last year. Hit the time limit on classification. It’s pretty interesting stuff, actually. The Enterprise messed with some kind of subspace fold and briefly changed the laws of reality, making everything like a musical. I thumbed through it a while back myself, actually. I gotta say, Nurse Chapel really knew how to belt out a tu—”

“Nevermind that,” I said, jerking the PADD towards myself so it was covered. “Part of the reason these were classified to begin with was to protect people's privacy. Whatever caused them to sing, everyone affected spilled their most closely held thoughts and secrets in the process. To the entire ship's crew, I might add.”

“Um, pardon my asking, but what exactly are heartsongs?” Rodriguez asked.

“Pretty similar to the incident here, except heavily influenced by Equus’s natural magical properties. Twi and I researched the topic a bit, but from what we can tell it’s highly unlikely we could trigger one here, even with the extra volunteers, due to being off-world.”

“Heartsongs have been pretty rare on Equus lately anyway,” Fluttershy added.

Pinkie flashed me a pair of puppy dog eyes so cute that I gave in and handed her back her PADD. “Well, if we can’t listen to that, we could try one of the musicals from Bridleway!”

“As the birthday girl here, I'm going to exercise my authority to request something else. Please.”

“You do have a point there, Shimmy Shim,” Pinkie replied. “What would you like to hear?”

I thought for a moment, choosing to focus on song ideas instead of whatever nickname Pinkie had just conjured up for me. “You know, while we were on Equus, I heard more than a few catchy tunes from someone named, um, Vinyl Scratch, yeah, that was it. Got any of that?”

“You bet your flank I do. Vinyl's only one of the best DJs in all of Equus. Comin' right up!”

She looked up at the ceiling. "Computer, switch to "Wubz" playlist and resume music!"

As a fresh electronic beat dropped the bass hard enough to shake the walls, we all went right back to dancing and laughing together.

The wreckage of the console let out an almost petulant seeming spark as I sifted through it with my magic, gritting my teeth more and more with every passing moment. My blood boiled just underneath my skin, every hackle raised, my wings refusing to sit still. All too familiar, the bitter taste of rage flooded my mouth, and I tensed up a hoof before lashing out with it, crushing a half shattered stalactite of ice laying on the ground. “This,” I hissed, “is the only clue we’ve found in over a month. And you smashed it?!”

Rutherford’s nostrils flared as he snorted hard enough to throw out jets of air in the cold, squaring up to look me directly in the eye. “Yaks startle easy! You have problem with yak reactions?!”

“Yes I have a problem with your reactions!” I snapped back, jabbing my hoof through the air to point at the destroyed console. “You said yourself you've known we were here since shortly after our ship crashed on Equus. So pardon me for thinking for just a second that, after discovering a bizarre piece of technology in a cavern you never knew existed until you dug it up, you might think to call the newly arrived aliens instead of breaking the damn thing!”

“How was yak supposed to know this?!” he bellowed. The cavern walls trembled as he all but mauled the stone with his crashing hooves.

“Maybe if you had more thoughts in that tiny little brain of yours than smashing everything— “

“Whoa, whoa, okay, okay, that’s enough, both of you,” Cadance shouted, rushing between us and displaying an alarming amount of strength as she physically shoved us both apart. “Prince Rutherford, please tone it down just a few notches? Thank you.” She turned to me and pulled me a bit further away, moving to block my view of Rutherford. “As for you, Twilight, what is going on with you?”

“What do you think's going on, Cadance? Our first big clue in weeks now and they broke it!" I seethed. "you'd be mad too!” For just a moment, my horn swirled with purplish magic so dark it was almost black, filling the air with a burst of warmth, my fury simmering like a pot threatening to boil over its cover.

But before I knew it, Cadance tapped her horn to mine, and I let out a gasp as something magical flooded my body, reminding me a lot of Mother’s occasional partial mind-melds.

Except instead of Vulcan logical calm, this was love. Pure, nonjudgmental, supportive love, an empathy that was almost overpowering.

My anger fizzled like a campfire in drizzling rain, the smoke billowing away to nothing from my horn. “I’m sorry,” I whispered to Cadance.

“It’s alright, Twilight,” she said, setting a hoof on my shoulder. “I’m not the one you need to apologize to.”

“Right.” I nodded, took a deep breath to steady myself, then faced Rutherford. “I apologize, Prince Rutherford.”

“Yak not accept apology!” Rutherford barked, his regalia nearly flying off his head. “You insult yak intelligence! Always ponies do this. Always say yak stupid. Yaks not stupid! Yaks just emotional!”

“I’m sure she didn’t mean it,” Cadance insisted, casting a brief glance of sympathetic understanding my way. “Twilight is under a lot of stress. Take it from me, even princesses say things they don't mean from time to time.”

Rutherford scowled at me, narrowing his beady eyes. “Yak understand words said in anger, but words hurtful! Me show you nothing but hospitality.”

I looked away for a moment, grinding my teeth together until I managed to wrest some control over my anger again. Not for the first time, I wished I’d had even a modicum of Sunset’s self-control. “I’m sorry,” I repeated, this time more sincerely. “I shouldn’t have insulted you like that. I just…” A massive sigh escaped me. “I spent sixteen years looking for Equus after I ended up on Earth. And when we finally find it, we're greeted with 'welcome home also the sun's dying and if you can't fix it we're doomed'. I know that's not an excuse for my behavior just now, but it's... it's a lot to bear.”

“Hmm…” Rutherford rumbled. He stomped his way over to me and raised a hoof to my forehead, then nodded. “Me understand. Me forgive… for now. But don’t say anything like that again, or me smash you!”

“That’s fair,” I said with a bitter chuckle.

“Lieutenant,” Ayhan spoke up, reminding me that my officers had witnessed the whole affair. I hadn’t noticed but she was on her knees, digging through the wreckage of the console. “I believe that we may be able to salvage some data from this console after all. There are still some intact crystals.”

“The kind that act like isolinear chips?” I asked as I stepped back over to the console.

“Indeed,” Ayhan replied. She reached in and brought out a verdant crystal, shining green with its many facets. “I would need to scan this thoroughly with a working tricorder, but I believe this is the central storage unit. It is similar to the ones we discovered in the other caverns.”

“Speaking of scanning things,” Blackford interjected, holding up his tricorder. “There’s still a dampening field in place, and Whatever’s generating it isn’t part of this console. It’s something else.”

“Which means there might be a chance we can still find some vital information,” Vohrn concluded. “Err, ma’am.”

A smile briefly tugged at my muzzle, and I made a mental note to thank them all for their professionalism once we were back aboard the shuttlecraft. “Good thinking.” I turned back to Rutherford. “Prince Rutherford, when Yona and the others were digging down here, did they find anything else? Any other potential artifacts?”

Rutherford raised a hoof to his bearded chin, running it through the rough fibers for a couple of minutes before his eyes lit up. “Yes! Yaks find many old yak tools and articles of clothing. But, yaks did find one item precious to yak history. May be important.”

“Can you show us?”

He nodded, and pounded a single hoof into the stone. “Come! Me show you.”

“Good. Blackford, Vohrn, you two stay down here and keep examining the console, in case there’s anything else we can recover from it. Ayhan, with me,” I said, as I started to follow Rutherford back up the winding path.

Only for a bit of magic to abruptly tug on my tail, and I turned to see Cadance’s face burning with disappointment. “Twilight,” she said, her tone just on the dangerous side of gentle. “Do you realize how close you came to undoing years of painstaking diplomatic work with the yaks? Hmm?”

I bit back the grimace that threatened to spread over my muzzle. “Yes.”

“And it's a good thing Shining Armor isn't here right now. He'd be even more disappointed in you than I am.”

“I know, I know. I get it, Cadance.” I tried to keep moving, but she tugged my tail again.

“No, I don’t think you do,” she shot back. “Twilight, you scared me for a moment, truly.” She closed the distance between us and extended a wing around me, her soft feathers gracing my shoulders. “I can understand being upset, but that was more than just anger. That was something else entirely; I felt it the moment we touched horns. What happened to you?”

A cold shudder ran through me as I looked Cadance in the eye. She felt…it. What the Nightmare left on me. “It’s… a lot to explain. And I thank you for calming me down. But is this really the time to be discussing this?”

“Maybe not, but between this and what seems like relationship issues with Preta, I’m worried about you.” She pulled me into a tight hug, ignoring my squirming. “You’re my sister-in-law. You’re family to me, and I still remember caring for you when you were a little foal. It hurts to see you like this, and I want to help you if I can.”

“You should’ve seen me when I thought Sunset was dead,” I grunted as I managed to use my own strength to break free of the hug finally. Good grief, for a mare who didn’t have any obvious muscles like I did, she was strong. Then again, without Maia around, I’d been slacking on my training routine. Maybe I needed to get back into the swing of it. I could probably find a guard or two to train with.

Cadance looked at me, her eyes brimming with concern, and reached out like she planned to hug me again when Rutherford’s bellow of, “Ponies coming or not?” interrupted us. She looked away and sighed, dropping her hoof to the stone floor.

We caught up to Rutherford and the others just as they reached the surface, and followed him to another yurt nearby, one with a pair of guards, and a number of excited yaks milling about. “In here,” he said.

The inside was littered with relics, laid out in neat little rows, with a single lady yak wearing pince-nez glasses going over each one and jotting down notes on a clipboard. She looked up as we entered and yelped, shrinking back. “P-P-Prince Rutherford!”

“Yasmerelda!” he proclaimed, stomping over to clap her on her back. “These ponies and others from spaceship, come to see old yak things.”

“Why they want see old yak things?” she muttered as she managed to recover from her initial fright. “Old yak things old. Only interesting to yak scholars. Like me!” She jabbed a hoof into her chest and beamed.

“Historical artifacts are of great interest to many cultures,” Ayhan answered. “Furthermore, we believe one of them may be responsible for the dampening field that drew us here.”

“What?”

I ran my tongue over my teeth to try to resolve an odd itching sensation that sprung up the moment we’d entered the yurt. “It’s blocking your radio signals,” I said, trying not to let my discomfort show.

“Oh.” Yasmerelda glanced down at her clipboard, then back at the various bits and bobs. “Me not sure how that possible. None of these have any power.” She glanced back at the clipboard. “Except maybe Helm of Yksler.”

“What is this helm?” Ayhan asked.

Rutherford’s eyebrows disappeared into his bushy mane. “Helm of Yksler most important yak artifact.”

“Wait a minute, I think I might’ve heard of this,” I said, holding up a hoof. I concentrated for a long moment while I tried to dig up Equestrian history lessons that I hadn't thought about in what felt like a lifetime. “It used to belong to an ancient yak named Yksler, and was supposedly… enchanted? Yes! Now I remember. It was enchanted, and he used it to disarm his enemies.”

“Yes!” Rutherford exclaimed. “Is most magical yak artifact. Ancient helm. Very precious. Was lost for centuries, but discovered in ruins below! Yaks shocked to find it, thought it lost for good.”

Cadance moved up next to me. “Twilight, are your teeth tingling? Because mine are really bugging me.”

“Yeah, I can feel it in my magic too. It's like two comms channels partially stepping over each other.”

“The helm, maybe?”

“Well, if it really was enchanted, then...” I looked back up at Rutherford. “Prince Rutherford, with your permission, may we see the helm?”

“Mmm. Yes. Yasmerelda!”

“R-right away,” she murmured as she rushed over to a wooden box near the back of the yurt. She picked it up and brought it over, then opened it up for us, revealing the helm resting atop a furred interior.

At first glance, the helm didn’t seem all that special. Its design evoked yak horns, with two curled, thick protrusions on either side, carved from some sort of metal. Yellow bands of what might’ve been a form of gold or electrum wrapped around either side of it, with a prominent diamond shaped piece of metal set in the center. Atop it was a crest of reddish fur.

And it oozed magic. I didn’t even need to use a magical examining spell to see it; I could feel it all over me now, not just in my teeth, like I was itchy everywhere all at once.

“Ayhan,” I said, nodding to the helm.

She squatted down to examine the helm more closely, one slender eyebrow cresting her forehead. “Fascinating. Lieutenant, although I cannot be entirely certain without a proper tricorder scan, I do not believe this helm was made of steel or gold as its appearance suggests. It seems to be made of some form of tritanium.”

“Tritanium?!” I gasped. “Are you sure?”

She shook her head. “As I stated, I cannot be certain without a tricorder. But given the helm’s age, it should have visible signs of wear and degradation if it were made of simpler materials, but it does not. With that, as well as the apparent association with the other examples of technology we have uncovered, it seems eminently logical to conclude.”

Rutherford glanced between us, eyes narrowed in apparent confusion. “Me don’t understand. What tritanium? You mean titanium?”

“No, we don’t,” I answered. “Tritanium is an alloy. It’s also impossible for anyone on Equus to manufacture because it requires far more advanced technology.” I peered closer at the helm. “Ayhan, I think we might’ve located the source of the dampening field.”

“Perhaps so. It would be consistent with the mythology of the artifact, if it did indeed ‘disarm his enemies,’ as creating a dampening field would do just that for any space-faring society that uses energy weapons. Yasmerelda, when precisely was the helm discovered?”

The yak scientist took a moment to examine her clipboard. “One week ago. Was found in ruins of old box.”

“And when did the radio start malfunctioning?” I asked Rutherford.

“Same time,” he rumbled. “Me think you right. Helm cause issues.”

“When the helm was discovered,” Ayhan asked, “what precisely was done with it? Was anything about it handled in a particular way?”

“No, yaks very careful,” Yasmerelda answered. “Me handle helm meself. Only touch it once.”

“Perhaps it was already functioning but the glacier was enough to hide its effects,” Ayhan speculated.

“Well, either way, we’re going to need to examine it more thoroughly,” I said. I reached out with my magic to take the helm.

Only to have Rutherford smack my horn, dissipating my spell. “What you doing?! You not hear me? Helm of Yksler most precious yak artifact. You think you just take?”

I bit back my initial retort, because he had a fair point. “With your permission, yes,” I said. “This artifact might hold some of the answers we’re seeking. We need to study it further, in a laboratory setting.”

“No!” His scowl intensified to a burning passion. “You no take! You want helm? You earn helm!”

Cadance’s visible wince sent a pang of concern through me. “Oh dear,” she murmured.

“Look, if this is about before, I really am sorry.”

“No, not about that. This other matter entirely. Yaks test all who ask big favor like this, must earn right.”

“Earn how, exactly?” I asked, more than a little afraid I already knew the answer.

Rutherford’s savage grin confirmed it. “Strength contest! You prove you smash better than yak, can outwrestle yak, then we let you borrow helm.”

And my regret for letting my routine wane only grew at that statement. I could already feel the beginnings of the muscle strain in my shoulders and flanks. “Uh, alright then. Where do I—”

“Not you!” Rutherford interrupted. He jabbed a hoof in Ayhan’s direction. “Her!”

My brain almost short-circuited at that. “What? Why?”

“Because pony might cheat with magic,” Rutherford said, the humor in his voice grating in the way it mocked me. “Puny alien not have magic, can not cheat.”

“Wha, I wouldn’t cheat with magic!” I protested, my wings flaring in irritation.

Cadance held out a hoof for me to quiet down. “No, no, it’s a fair request Twilight, and you know that. Although… are you sure that one of the, err, others wouldn’t be… better? Maybe that dark-skinned one with the gorgeous smile?”

I shot her a disbelieving look, about to question this, when Ayhan interjected, “There is no need. Unlike Lieutenant Blackford, I am Vulcan. I estimate that my strength will be more than sufficient for the task.”

Rutherford all but fell over guffawing at that. “Hahahaha! If say so, puny, uh, Vuhl-kan. What your name again? Me need to know in case need to carve new tombstone, hahahahaha!”

Ayhan folded her arms behind her back in an at-rest position, the only sign of reaction on her face being a momentary raise of her eyebrow. The effect was all the more jarring considering that even with the height advantage the humanoid crew had over most of Equus’ inhabitants, Rutherford still towered over her in both height and size. “Lieutenant Ayhan. With your permission, Lieutenant Sparkle.”

I managed to resist the urge to facepalm with my wing, only using it to rub the bridge of my nose briefly before dropping it. “Granted, Lieutenant, if you’re certain.” I tapped my badge by automatic, and thanked good fortunate that the comm channel was going through despite the dampening field. “R’el, this is Sparkle. Please have the shuttle on hot standby, as Ayhan might need swift medical attention soon.

“Uh, aye, ma’am,” Preta replied, her voice patchy with static. “May I ask why?”

“The yaks are insisting she participate in a contest of physical strength,” I grumbled. “I’ll let you know if we need the evac. Sparkle out.” One extra tap of my badge later, I added, “Vohrn, Blackford, get back topside please.”

“On our way.”

“Alright, Prince Rutherford,” I said as I dropped my hoof to the floor. “What kind of contests are you subjecting her to?”

“Three contests!” he insisted as he guided us back outside and over to an otherwise empty space near the radio tower, and opposite his yurt. There, small fire pits and plenty of wooden benches ringed a large circular patch of ground that seemed ready-made for everything from sports to public speeches. A number of younger yaks struggled against each other in the circle, arm wrestling or beating their horns against each other.

“Move!” Rutherford thundered to those gathered, who all swiftly fled the circle at his command. “Yaks, gather round! We hold big triple threat contest, for visitors want take Helm of Yksler!”

A crowd of yaks swiftly gathered, booing and laughing at us, even as Blackford and Vohrn joined Cadance and me on one of the front rows of benches. “Wait, what’s going on?” Blackford whispered.

“Just a small demonstration of Yak culture,” Cadance said with a grin. “Grab a seat!”

Ayhan was led by Rutherford into the center of the circle, and gestured grandly to her with one forehoof. “This alien, Lieutenant Ayhan, she fight for visitors!”

Huge amounts of laughter echoed around the crowd. “She so small!” One yak shouted.

“She no even smile!”

“No fear on her face!”

Rutherford smirked at Ayhan, the expression a little weird with his fur covering half of his eyes. “So, we hold triple threat! Contests of smashing, wrestling, and drinking! Who will fight for yaks for first contest?”

A huge number of yaks, mostly males, all began clamoring for attention, until Rutherford pointed at one seemingly at random. “You! What name?”

“Yannick me name,” answered the yak, one with a more reddish cast to his coat and mane, wearing regalia of plain leather. He thumped his chest with one hoof. “Me best sport be smashing!”

Rutherford pointed to the circle. “Come, Yannick. Show Ayhan what it mean to smash!”

As a couple of yak guards brought in several small cords of oak and shaped them into little statues, I found myself irritated that we had to go through this whole song and dance at all. I began to run through some scenarios in my head about how I could sneak in and get the helm, then teleport us all to the shuttle at once.

And cause an international incident in the process, probably spark a war, and really, really piss off Cadance in the process.

Damn it, I wish Sunset was here. She was so much better at this diplomatic game than I was. She probably could’ve sweet-talked Rutherford into handing it over without all of this absurdity.

“Good! Now, for Ayhan sake, explain rules,” Rutherford said. He pointed at the two assemblies of wood. “This first contest, very simple. Each get only three strikes. Whoever smash into more pieces after three wins!”

“I understand,” Ayhan said, not budging from her at rest position. Though I could see she was calculating in her head. I hoped, for her sake, she knew what she was doing.

“Yannick go first! Now, smash!”

“Raaaaaaugh!” Yannick bellowed at the top of his lungs, and came down with his hooves onto the assembly, breaking it into several larger pieces, which he rapidly stomped on two of. The end result left it a broken pile of wood, and the air filled with thunderous applause from his fellow yaks.

“Very good! Me impressed! Now, you turn, Ayhan.” Rutherford chuckled. “If think you can do better. Me doubt it though.”

Ayhan drew her hands out from behind herself and approached the assemblage, glancing at it from a few different angles. Then her arm lashed out at a speed I could hardly believe.

The first strike caused the assemblage to break into about as many pieces as Yannick’s trio of blows, and two more swift jabs with her hand left the pile more sawdust than wood.

The crowd stared in shocked silence as Ayhan drew back and resumed her previous stance as if she had expended no energy at all. “I believe that should be satisfactory, based upon your criteria,” she said.

“H-how you do that?!” Rutherford shouted, before throwing his hooves up and laughing. “Hah! You not as puny as Rutherford think! Ayhan win first contest!”

The stomping of hooves and shouts of jubilation from the crowd were almost deafening, even as Yannick let out a roar of irritation and kicked one of the remaining pieces of wood careening into the air and out of sight.

Rutherford waited for the crowd to quiet down a bit before continuing. “Next, we wrestle!” He glanced around, then picked out a yak personally. “You. Yohan. You good at arm wrestling. Ayhan too small for full body wrestling, so arm wrestling better.”

Cadance let out a giggle. “Ayhan and Yohan. They rhyme.”

“She’s so going to kick his ass,” Vohrn whispered, smirking. “I’ve seen Ayhan arm wrestle Commander Zhidar once. This yak’s got nothing on him.”

“I dunno, he’s pretty huge,” Blackford murmured.

The guards came in and swiftly set up a podium out of a carved tree stump for Ayhan and Yohan to wrestle on, and gestured for them to take their places. Ayhan had to kneel down in a somewhat awkward way before she rested her arm on the podium. “Me trust you know rules to arm wrestling,” Rutherford said to her.

“Indeed. It is a common practice among the Phoenix crew.” Ayhan faced her opponent. “I am ready.”

“Very well. Yohan!” The yak in question rested his hoof against her hand, the size difference making many of the yaks watching laugh in mockery. “Begin!”

Yohan grit his teeth and pushed hard on Ayhan’s arm, at first without much strain on his part, then with grunting and straining to follow, but all the while Ayhan remained stone-faced and unmoving. She seemed content to wait for him to exhaust much of his strength, and the jeers from the crowd clamoring for her to do something fell upon deaf ears.

“Rrrgh!” Yohan cried as he put his full weight into wrestling, only to falter.

And the instant he showed he was weakening, she struck like lightning, and his arm slammed down onto the podium hard enough to send wood splinters flying.

“Aaaaugh! You hurt Yohan arm!” Yohan whimpered, pulling it back and cradling it as the crowd erupted in cheers.

“My apologies. I miscalculated the amount of force required for victory,” Ayhan said as she stood once more.

Rutherford shook his head in disbelief, then pushed Yohan away. “You go get arm fixed. Pathetic.” He then clapped Ayhan hard on the shoulder, though she didn’t budge. “Ayhan win again! Me super impressed!”

“Okay, that’s got to be enough, right?” Blackford said. “She won two contests and it was a best out of three, right?”

“Wrong!” Rutherford shouted back. “Must win all three! Last contest is drinking! We see who can stand longest after drinking whole jug of yak vodka!”

Cadance leaned in next to me. “Oh no. This is not good.”

“Oh, this should be easy for her,” I said, smiling a little as the yak guards went to fetch the jugs. “Vulcans have strong constitutions, and there’s no way that the amount could be… that… much…” My jaw fell open as I saw the size of the jugs the yaks were carting in. “Ooooh dear.”

“Mmhmm.”

The jugs weren’t the size of wine bottles, or even the moonshine whiskey jugs I once made the mistake of drinking from. They were more like the size of foals. I wasn’t sure Ayhan could even ingest that much liquid, let alone handle the alcoholic content.

“Ayhan,” I said, standing from my seat. “That’s enough. You don’t need to do this last one.”

Ayhan raised her eyebrow at me, then examined the jug she held in her hands. “With respect, ma’am, I do not believe it would be logical for me to abandon this now, as I have already successfully completed two of the required three challenges.”

“Yes, but they didn’t require ingesting insane amounts of alcohol either. That poses just a bit more risk to you than arm wrestling.

Ayhan was unmoved. “I am aware ma’am, and your concern is of course valid.I will let you know if I require aid.”

I raised my hoof to object, only to stop half-way through. “Well, if you're sure about it. Proceed, but be careful please.” I sat back down, and glanced at my fellow officers, who looked just as worried.

Not Cadance though. She simply smiled and sat forward, eagerly awaiting the results.

“Now, last contest, me do meself!” Rutherford announced as he hefted his jug. “Is not chugging contest, so take time if needed. But must drink whole jug!”

“Acknowledged,” Ayhan said. She lifted it up to her nose and smelled it, both eyebrows raising briefly. “I am ready.”

“Begin!”

The crowd’s voices rose in volume, urging the two of them on, cheering as Rutherford immediately ignored his own advice and chugged his entire jug as fast as possible before tossing it aside.

Ayhan, meanwhile, raised it to her lips, and began to rapidly swallow at a pace that was so consistent in speed it was almost disturbing. Where had she learned how to do that? A quick glance at the rest of the team told me they were just as shocked as I was at what we were seeing. We couldn't look away from watching her every move, till she drained the last of the jug's contents, then gently set it down in front of her.

As she set it aside, I realized she’d taken at least a minute longer to finish it than Rutherford had his, but she seemed to be almost entirely unaffected. Resuming her at-rest posture, she looked him in the eye and said, “We must simply outlast each other, correct?”

He hiccuped, and stumbled a little bit. “Yes!” he said, his voice slurring already, warmth apparent even on his furred cheeks. “Me… me good at hic holding liquor. This batch extra hic strong. From me own stock.”

Ayhan nodded, and we watched her refuse to move or show any sign of inebriation, even as he began to stumble around and laugh. She didn’t even acknowledge him pushing at her shoulder. “You… you strong,” he stammered. “Yak never see creature puny like you able to stand up hic yaks before.”

“As I stated before, I am Vulcan,” she replied, not a trace of a slur in her words. “My constitution is superior to that of most humanoids.”

“Me can… can see that…” Rutherford murmured, before abruptly letting out a massive belch, leading most of the crowd to laugh uproariously. “You… me can see… can see me cannot win. Urp. Me… me give you victory.” He stomped his hoof, almost crushing her foot as he missed where he was aiming. “Ayhan win all three contests! She get helm!”

The crowd erupted into fresh cheers as they rushed forward, many of them choosing to lift Ayhan into an impromptu parade of victory, and plenty of them trying to get her to say or do something to respond other than a simple declaration of, “I appreciate the opportunity to participate in your cultural celebrations. It was most illuminating.”

Yasmerelda soon emerged through the crowd, the helm carried in her hooves, which she presented to Ayhan. “Here. Your prize.”

“Be careful with helm!” Rutherford said as he abruptly fell onto his side. “Is… is precious to yaks.”

“We will be respectful with it, and avoid harming it, I assure you,” Ayhan said as she brought the helm over to the rest of us, handing it to me. “Lieutenant, do you think you can disable the dampening field now?”

“Maybe…” I picked up the helm in my magic, turning it over a few times, before touching the center gemstone. All of a sudden, sound erupted from a number of the yurts near town, and Blackford, who had his tricorder out, smiled and held it up.

“Looks like that’s an affirmative, ma’am. The dampening field has been lowered.”

I let out a sigh of relief. “We’ll still need to examine this more thoroughly. It might be the only real clue we have to go on, given the wreckage of the console.” I glanced over at Blackford. “Is there any point to getting further scans of the wreckage?”

“I don’t think so, ma’am, Vohrn and I already gathered some samples to go with the data crystal that Ayhan retrieved.”

“Then let’s get going, before the booze catches up to her.” I glanced over at Rutherford, who looked half asleep on the ground. “Prince Rutherford, thank you for allowing us to visit.” A slight frown touched my lips. “Do you need medical attention?”

“No, he been much worse than this,” Yasmerelda said. “He sleep it off.”

I nodded. “We’ll be in touch, then.”

“G-good. Yaks hope you find success.” He shivered. “Is colder than yaks like already. Not want freeze. Freezing to death is yak nightmare.”

“We’ll do our best,” I murmured.

As we headed back for the shuttlecraft, Cadance pulled me aside briefly. “Hey, Twilight, listen…”

I sighed and looked her in the eye. “I know, I know. I owe you a conversation about a lot of things,and to be honest I probably need it too. For my own sake... and Preta's too.”

She drew her lips back into a concerned frown, then reached out to hug me with her wings again. “I’m sorry, Twilight, I’m just worried for you. I know we haven’t known each other as adults for long, but… you’re still family. Just promise me you’ll speak with her, alright?” She smiled a little. “And maybe work on that anger of yours.”

“Yeah, heh,” I chuckled, rubbing the back of my head with a hoof. “I’ll do that.”

As we boarded the shuttlecraft, Ayhan finally showed signs of succumbing to the alcohol, stumbling into the side of the shuttle hatch. “I appear to be more inebriated than I first suspected,” she said.

“Gotcha covered,” Preta said as she left the pilot seat, opening up a first aid kit and pulling out a hypo, which she quickly administered. “The anti-intoxicant should help cancel it out in a few minutes.”

Ayhan cocked her head, then nodded. “Thank you, Lieutenant. It was becoming difficult to withstand.”

“You bet,” Preta said. She looked up at me, and I winced inwardly when I saw the hesitation in her eyes and the awkward way she straightened herself up. “Prepared for departure, ma’am.”

I nodded, and moved to sit next to her in the co-pilot’s seat. “Then let’s get back to base, Preta.” I reached out with a hoof just long enough to touch her hand gently, then pulled back. “We’ve got a bit of talking to do.”

She glanced at me, her ears flattening in a cat-like display of dismay, until she saw the twinkle in my own eyes, and she relaxed. “Yes, ma’am,” she said, smiling toothily.

I don't know if Preta's ears caught it, but I definitely heard Cadance's very self-satisfied tittering from the back of the shuttle.

I gave the team the rest of the afternoon off once we returned to base, with the idea that we'd reconvene briefly just after dinner to plan out the next few days.

It turned out that I had way more on my mind than I had thought. Preta too. Just so many little things, and so many deferred chances to just be present with each other, had piled up between us that it was weighing us both down more than I had ever imagined. Then again, Cadance is the Princess of Love, so the two of us must have set off every alarm in her head right away.

But after a few cups of tea, a lot of conversation... and a bit of non-verbal talking as well, both Preta and I were in much better shape emotionally and mentally.

A few hours later, just after dinner with the team, I was finishing up some paperwork at my desk, when Ayhan came into the office, and handed me a PADD. “Lieutenant Sparkle, I have finished my analysis of the data crystal.”

“Already? That was fast,” I said, sitting up straighter so I could examine it in detail. “Looks like it was mostly corrupted, though I can’t say that’s a surprise considering how we found it.”

“Indeed. It seems that unlike the others, this console was more exposed to the elements, less protected. The physical damage was also most severe. However, I was still able to extract a single fragment of a message buried within the crystal.”

“Oh?” I leaned forward. “What did it say?”

She paused, and I could see her weighing her response before finally replying, “Yak smash.”

“...uuuugh,” I groaned, my face landing in my hooves. “Good grief.”