//------------------------------// // 15 - Mares… IN SPACE! // Story: Evergreen Falls // by Meep the Changeling //------------------------------// Junebug - 12th of Harvestide, 4 EoH Hackamore Valley Observatory - Evergreen Falls June sat down at the lab work bench and took a deep breath. Pull it together, June. You can do this. You can totally avoid bucking up the eighty-thousand bit spell matrix. It’s just like making a wireless earbud, only for something way way more expensive than a messenger gem. June took a moment to look at the Translation Talisman she’d been issued for her project. After Sam and Fluttershy had contacted an entity through the device, it had been bumped up to a top priority project. June had been told in no uncertain terms that if Dusk had not recruited her the astrolabe would have been transferred to a more senior member of CARE immediately. As things stood, the assumption was Death believed June to be the pony to crack this particular nut. Hence, she’d been issued SkyTech’s new translator after mentioning off hoof she wasn’t entirely fluent in Amilic. Leading to her being hunched over the carefully crafted crystal amulet, having popped the case open to attach a small piece of silver and osmium to the primary spell matrix. June looked over her tools. Arcflux wand. Ethercoil tuner. Flux analyzer. Chronocircuit integrator. Super glue. That’s everything. Let’s do this. June carefully lifted the small silver chip with tweezers and placed it on the talisman’s exposed matrix. The osmium pins clicked against several of the micro-etched runes, prompting dim blue light to spill from the amulet up onto the chip. June bit her lip in concentration as she peered through the flux analyzer. The pins were slightly misaligned, feeding into gem traces that didn’t accept direct flow. She shifted the chip until the analyzer beeped approvingly, signaling that everything under the pins should be under the pins. With the chip contacting the right traces, June slowly, carefully, gently, pressed the wand against the chip, bonding the crystal to the osmium with a flash of green light. June let out a long held breath. Right. Didn’t crack it. Let’s hope I don’t slag it with step two… She moved the chronocircuit integrator’s dish over the modified talisman and switched it on. She’d already stored the ruby-quartz bi-crystal wafer she wished to link in the device’s attunement slot, and so flicked its switch. The lab’s lights dimmed as the device briefly taxed the circuit, almost long enough for the breaker to trip, before beeping three times to indicate a successful attunement as the lights recovered. Okay. Gems linked. The gem’s resonance was 6.38 gigahertz. Just gotta set the chip’s resonance to the same so I can have a clear signal. June moved the integrator out of the way, picked up the tuner with her manipulator gauntlets, held it over the exposed chip and talisman, and began to carefully dial the device in using her tool’s knobs. As soon as the device was tuned, June popped open the super glue and coated the chip with a thin layer to waterproof it and give it a slightly better bond to the talisman. Her work completed, she closed the talisman’s case, removed the magically linked ruby-quartz gemstone from its slot in the integrator, and super glued it into a black anodized aluminum ear clip, which she then slid onto her left ear. “Okay,” June said, smiling to try and distance herself from the stress of having potentially messed up an expensive piece of kit just so she didn’t have to wear a two kilo necklace the size of a soda can for work purposes. “Testing time.” June left the lab, locking it up behind her, and left for the dorm building quickly arriving and entering the common room. Fortunately for her, Dew was present in the living room, reading a trashy romance novel and giggling. June trotted up to Dew and cleared her throat politely. “Could you do me a favor?” Dew blinked. “Yeah?” she frowned, her ears folding back in irritation. “You know you can tell me what that is when you ask right?” June winced and took a step back. “I’m sorry. Did I upset you?” Dew sighed and shook her head. “No… Sorry. I ran into a new cop and he thought I was ditching school.” June gave Dew a quick hug, which the eternal filly returned. “Well, want to cuss him out in a language that’s not Equish or Neighponese for me?” June asked. Dew raised an eyebrow. “So I can test this remote link to a translator talisman,” June explained, gesturing to the clip on her ear. “Oh, sure. This will be in, uh… Draconic,” Dew decided on the spur of the moment. “That guy put me in a juvie holding cell for half an hour till his boss got me out and yelled at him. Dude’s such a lowlife he could parachute out a snake’s asshole.” June smiled. “Hey! Great. I heard Equish… Also that really sucks. Did you report him?” “Yeah, but that doesn't un-arrest me,” Dew mumbled going back to her book and also Equish. “I’m going back to laughing at ponies who think this is sexy now.” June nodded in understanding and turned around to go back to her office. She made it three steps before the common room phone started to ring. Not wanting to make Dew get up, June walked over, lifted the hoof set, and cleared her throat. “Hackamore Valley Observatory Common Room, Research Director Junebug speaking.” The phone crackled and sputtered as it did its best to transmit Enox’s vox modulated voice using the same frequency space as the average pony’s voice. “Hey June! I just got a bed. Like, for you! So you can sleep on it instead of the couch when you stay over. Want to drop by after work and break it in with me? Maybe try it out for sleeping on too?” “Absolutely!” June agreed, smiling ear to ear. “I just had a pretty stressful moment, so I could use that. See you in…” She took a moment to look at the wall clock. “... Maybe four, five hours?” “Great! I’ll make food!” June cleared her throat loudly. “Including stuff you can eat this time,” Enox added swiftly. “Sorry about that. I forgor ponies' renal systems can’t handle that much sugar.” Dew blinked and looked up from her book. “She made something so sugary you couldn't eat it? What the buck was it? How do you get more sugary than a literal brick of sugar?” June made a note of Dew’s excellent hearing and quickly answered her question. “She called it ‘Fair Food a la Americana’. It was like, almost literally, sugar noodles in a sweet cheese to make a mac and cheese which she deep fried. That was the appetizer. The entree was a ten bean salad made from deep fried jelly beans, served on pita bread which I think started as a pudding. The bread was also breaded and deep fried. The fry oil was liquified MSG and pure glucose. The drink was like, flavored slushy snow stuff. I think the meal was around two hundred thousand calories. I have no idea how she’s alive. I didn’t eat it. She ate my serving too.” Enox laughed through the phone. “I told you I’m basically yeast. I eat, like, pure sugar. I fermented all that.” “And you don’t like, piss a distillate, how?” “First, it would be more of a prison wine,” Enox said before giggling again. “Second, because my cells metabolize the alcohol I make and inhale. I’m internal combustion powered! Kinda. Actually, in a way, my lung sacks are superchargers. I’ll make you a salad this time. See you later!” “Later,” June said as she hung up. Right. We have two sonnets and a hundred remaining decoded attempts to translate. Let's see if there’s a third one. “I’m voting to ban Enox from bringing food over next family meeting,” Dew said as she turned a page on the couch. “Agreed,” June agreed as she began to walk back to her lab.  ⁜ ⁜ ⁜ Several long hours later, having completed the translations at last, June flew across town to Enox’s house. The alien mare lived in a small blue ranch house next to the junkyard right at the base of the mountain next to one of the town’s many waterfalls. June loved the spot, its view was amazing, the area would have been perfect for a nice little neighborhood… If not for the town junkyard filling the nice flat area almost entirely. I should ask why she built her house here of all places. It would make sense if she ran the junkyard, but that’s Waffle’s job, June noted as she circled overhead, doing her best not to wonder just how often Enox had to clean her pool filters, and failing. There’s no way it’s less than twice a month. So much rust has to blow into that pool. June banked left into a dive and landed on Enox’s porch right in front of the door with a soft click of hooves on wood. She rang the bell with her wingtip and seconds later the door was pulled open by Enox’s magic as her unmodulated voice called “Come in, hon! Back room.” June trotted inside and as usual, took a look around Enox’s house. In a word, it was normal. Timber construction. Hardwood and tile floors. Conventional Equestrian style furniture. A living room with a Minosian produced front projection TV in a nice walnut cabinet. Carpets in each room that made sense. Light blocking curtains. The only feature of Enox’s home that wasn’t normal was a commercial fire suppression system. Each room had a sprinkler, sometimes two, and also what June thought was a HALON system. Though she couldn’t be certain if those were indeed HALON or some other fire-retardant foam jets. The truly strange thing about Enox’s house was her taste in wall decorations. Posters, wall scrolls, paintings, all of which were pinups, lewd nudes, or pornographic in nature. While most anypony would find that to be weird, if not a little gross, it was entirely understandable given Enox’s doormat read ‘Cadence bless this mess’ and the sign on her door reading ‘Adults Only’, and the one below it which looked like a conventional Equestrian road hazard sign only it was marked with a cliche UFO and read ‘Warning: Probing Hazard’ in four languages. The fact Enox’s house wouldn't have been out of place anywhere a slightly odd pony lived used to unnerve June a little. She still felt that an alien’s house should be different from her various teenage girlfriend’s bedrooms, but she’d come to accept it. After all, if Enox was content living on Equis, she clearly enjoyed the local culture. June trotted through the entry, then the living room (giving the couch she often slept on a pat as she passed it), and into a back room Enox used to store random crap. The room had been given some new shelves to consolidate the mess to one half of the room, and a large Princess sized bed had been added. The bed lacked any sheets or blankets, though there were pillows. This allowed June to see quite clearly that Enox had bought a water bed. June’s ears flicked back instantly, though did perk back up at the sight of Enox laying atop the bed wearing only her breath mask. She waved at June as she stepped inside. “What do you think?” “I think you don’t know how polarizing that kind of mattress is,” June said apologetically. Enox frowned and looked down. “I asked Sam what kind of bed was best. What’s wrong with it?” June took a breath and nodded. “Okay, so, bed type is pretty personal and divisive. Some ponies like springs, some like foam, I prefer clouds. And a few very, very, very weird ponies like plastic bags full of water for reasons I simply cannot understand. Sam’s one of those weirdos, I guess.” Enox winced, her ears flopping back. “Ah. I’ll return it tomorrow then. Sorry.” “It’s okay, you didn’t know. I’d say keep it if you like it and I’d just deal but you don’t need one.” Enox nodded twice. “Yep yep! Any objections to using it for fun?” June thought for a moment then shrugged. “I’m down to at least see if that won't make me nauseous. They just bounce so much.” Ten minutes of experimentation later and the mares abandoned the water bed for the floor. Then the couch. Followed by Enox’s favorite armchair, then an ill-advised attempt to make use of the shower.  Thoroughly exhausted from their fun and her work day, June settled down on the left side of the couch since Enox was very protective of the right side seat. Probably cuz that’s where she bolted the fire extinguisher mount, June thought briefly wondering why the extinguisher was necessary given the house’s absurdly robust fire protection. Wait… Better question, why is it double barreled? What purpose can that serve? Is… It is a fire un-extinguisher? June curled up with a content yawn, calling out “Night, hon.” while scrunching herself into a cozy ball like the weirdo of a pony she was for the night. “Night,” Enox called from the kitchen where she was busy making an abomination best thought of as a superclass of milkshake to recoup the calories she’d just burned. June paused for a moment. While exhausted, she felt she could stay up for a while longer and she had often wondered what Enox did while she wasn’t there. I think I remember dad’s tips on how to do echolocation, June mused thinking back to the many times Night had tried to help her be a better hoofball player by listening for incoming players. While proper echolocation was limited to thestrals and pegasi with especially great hearing, any pegasus could do a crap job of it with a little practice. Of course, the range was garbage and the picture extremely fuzzy, and trying it out often made it impossible to understand spoken words as their language center would be overwhelmed trying to piece echos into an image without dedicated wetware, but it could be done. Sort of. June focused her hearing as best she could, positioning her ears how she remembered Night telling her, and concentrated. She could sort of hear Enox in the kitchen, right at the edge of the range before everything became a fuzzed out mess of noise. Her marefriend was standing on tippy hoofs, drinking her shake in one long gulp while bouncing to itch her back on the edge of the counter. Note to self: Buy her a backscratcher. Enox finished her ‘shake’ and itch, put the two liter cup she’d been drinking from in the sink and trotted into the living room. She took a seat on the couch next to June and used her magic to levitate a book and a pair of headphones from a shelf across the room, and slipped the headphones on to quietly listen to music and read. June twisted her ears a little so she could try and hear the music. Enox was incredibly embarrassed about her taste in music for some reason. The player clicked on, and June was surprised to hear “Equish” lyrics coming from the headphones. Likely due to forgetting she was still wearing her earclip. “What is this song all about? // Can't figure any lyrics out. How do the words to it go? // I wish you'd tell me, I don't know… // Don't know, don't know, don't know, oh no! // Don't know, don't know, don't know… // Now I'm mumblin', and I'm screamin'! // And I don't know what I'm singin'!” June did her best to stay still and not make a surprised face. Strange. I thought she exclusively liked foreign music. Isn’t this just Cheese Sandwich? So she likes pop parodies. Why is she embarrassed? Enox continued to read and listen to ‘Cheese Sandwich’ parody hits for a while, pausing once to go to the kitchen and fill her mask’s breath tank up with, presumably, some vodka. Just as June started to think about letting herself fall asleep for real, Enox put her book down and looked at June critically for a moment. She bent down, gave June a kiss on the cheek and quietly whispered, “Hey hon, want another BJ?” June did, actually, but she did her best to not react prompting Enox to nod to herself and sit up straight. “I wish you’d sleep on anything else,” she said quietly. “I need to use this too, you know.” What’s that supposed to mean? June wondered silently as Enox pushed down on the couch’s right side armrest and flipped it up to reveal a hidden control panel. June repositioned her ears, suddenly fascinated. Enox hit a button on the panel and her TV flicked to life. June hid her disappointment, assuming it was simply a hidden TV remote… Until a digital voice spoke quietly. “System link established. Awaiting command.” “Computer: Call my doctor,” Enox ordered, quietly enough that it wouldn’t have bothered June if she were sleeping. “Command recognised.” “Thanks, doll,” Enox commented. June’s wings twitched as she realized she was about to at least overhear some cool alien stuff. A few moments later a male voice spoke from the direction of the TV. “Good evening, Enox. Please state the nature of the medical emergency.” June desperately wished she could sneak a peek at the screen, but knew opening her eyes would give the game away. “No emergency today, Doc,” Enox said with a shrug. “Just want to run a few symptoms by you. I might be getting sick.” “By all means.” “Well, about a local month ago I got involved with a nice mare. It might be getting a bit serious. We haven’t hit the mammalian slowdown, if you know what I mean. I want to make sure I can be with her as long as she wants me… But, well, she’s a transmare so plenty of her fluids wind up in me, and while that’s normally safe—” “You’ve been feeling ill,” the doctor commented. June flinched, prompting Enox to glance her way for a moment. I’m making her sick? I hope not! That’s terrible! “Yeah. I’ve been taking the formalin you prescribed. It definitely works for keeping me healthy in this atmo and with light contact with ponies, but uh… Yeah. Joint stiffness. Slight loss of range of motion. Decreased appetite. Occasional moment of wandering attention. Started about a week into our relationship. Seems like I might need some higher dose tabs?” Enox proposed. “Your species is fully compatible with equus sapiens, outside of the metakelfin depletion the tabs I prescribed you would fix,” the Doctor reported. “She shouldn’t be causing you any health problems at all. Is that her on the couch next to you? Can you send me her bio-data? There could be a mutation or health problem of hers impacting you.” Buck that! June exclaimed to herself. If there is, she missed it on the scans she did of me before. I should see her doctor in person. “Or I could, like, go to your doctor and have him look,” June said, opening her eyes. Enox froze, squeaking in adorable distress. “Oh! Uh… G— Good job being a sneaky little bitch. How dare you out me myself!” June couldn’t help but giggle at Enox’s self-directed irritation at having been fooled. I know she loves having anyone get one over on her. “I would prefer to run my own scan here, yes,” the doctor said. “If you don’t mind taking her in I could also implant you with a gland to provide a constant supply of formalin. The subway reopened and I was able to restock.” “I would love—” Enox stopped talking and turned to June. “When and how did you learn Terran?” June triple blinked. “Uh… You’re not speaking…” She facehooved. “Right! I’m wearing a translator talisman,” she said before her wings flutter in surprise. “Wait, what is an alien language doing in the translation database?” June took off the earclip to press its gem and open the interface. Enox’s conversation with her doctor dissolved into a strange alien tongue while she flicked through the projected illusion-menu. “What the buck do you mean ‘English (Emerald Hive)’?” June demanded of the translator, narrowing her eyes at it. “How do changelings know—” Enox snorted. “Oh. The Emeralds. That makes sense.” June raised an eyebrow, prompting Enox to continue. “Gee, I wonder how a bunch of changelings living in an ancient wrecked starship know the most common intergalactic language in the universe?” June raised a hoof to object, then lowered it. “Then… That’s an alien language, and nopony knows because we all assumed they made it up?” “Yep!” Enox said, grinning ear to ear at the act of unintentional trolling on all ponykind. June slipped the earclip back on just in time to hear the doctor say, “I’ll see you soon. Goodbye for now.” The TV clicked off. June’s ears drooped. “Dang it! I forgot to look at… I could have seen a whole new alien species!” Enox rolled her eyes. “We’re going to his office. You’ll see, like, two new species soon,” she said while tapping some commands into her couch-control. “Hold onto the seat.” “What? Why?” June asked, frowning slightly. Enox wordlessly levitated a pair of aviator sunglasses from a shelf and put them on. Then, after a moment’s pause, fetched a second large pair for June, slipping them over her eyes without asking. June’s tail raised in alarm. “Are we going to teleport or—” “No,” Enox said and hit one last button on the control. “Oh and um, don’t tell anypony anything. I don’t have building permits for any of this.” A mechanical click echoed through the house. A soft klaxxon blared as trap door opened under the couch, allowing it to slowly descend via a hidden elevator system. The shaft was lined with orange hazard lights that blinked in time with the alarm. June sat frozen in place from surprise until the elevator reached the bottom of its twenty meter shaft, placing the couch on a turntable. June couldn't help but notice a second shaft located about where Enox’s chair was which went deeper into the earth. “What—” June managed to say before the table jolted to life, rotating the couch a hundred and eighty degrees to face a tunnel which the couch then proceeded down thanks to a monorail system embedded in the floor. “Shhh,” Enox urged. “It works better if you act cool and keep your hands inside the couch.” Enox hit a button on the couch’s control panel, switching on some upbeat synthwave. The rail tunnel ran for maybe sixty meters, moving upwards at a shallow angle. It emerged in a large cavern lined with metal catwalks, roofed with steel girders that supported cranes, and almost entirely occupied by a large saucer shaped craft which June swore she’d seen grainy photos of in every tabloid ever. The ship was easily the size of Enox’s house, but not much larger than the five room ranch home. It had a slight dome shape on the top in the center which June instinctively understood was the bridge, but was otherwise a smooth thin disk made from a chrome colored alloy. There were a pair of small, terrifyingly square engine housing built into the ship’s rear, but otherwise the disk was smooth and uninterrupted. The ship had no windows, nor any markings of any kind save for a name and number painted on the side facing the hangar doors. Thunderbird, GR-004, June thought to herself as the translation spell informed her as to the meaning of the alien writing.  The couch-track continued, moving into the center of the ship hangar where it met a simple cable-based elevator and automatically locked into the elevator car. June gripped the couch arm for dear life, realizing they wouldn’t be getting out to use any of the staircases or lifts she could see at the sides of the hanger. The couch descended smoothly, entering the ship via an iris-hatch in the roof of the bridge. As soon as the couch touched down at the front of the bridge, at the base of a massive view screen and within reach of the ship’s controls, it unlocked from the elevator and locked into place on the bridge floor. The elevator cables retracted from the ship and the iris hatch closed before June let go of the arm rest and realized she was sitting in something halfway between a naval ship’s Command Information Center and a scifi nerd’s sketch of a spaceship they made when they were ten.  Everything was a shade of purple, pink, or silver. Except viewscreens, all of which glowed a warm green color. There were countless flexible metal cable conduits running across the roof and behind the bulkheads. Tons of little lights blinked merrily on control panels spaced out around the circular bridge. Something industrial hummed relaxingly in the distance. June didn’t care about any of that. “Did… Do… Why is your captain’s chair a brown couch I swear you bought off Cobslist?” Enox shot June an irritated look. “Okay so, this ship is my safe space. No criticism, please. But for the record, it’s because this is so much comfier when I’m flying around.” June nodded and buttoned her lip. “Computer: ready launch.” Enox instructed. “Input course for Lunar Lagrange Two.” “Launch Sequence: Stage 1. Calculating course.” June blinked. “Wait, isn’t that… Isn’t that a spot just behind the moon?” “Mhm,” Enox confirmed before starting her version of the little ritual every pilot has before takeoff. June watched Enox pat her control console, flip a few switches, then gaze longingly at a small photograph of herself and four other aliens of different species wearing suits identical to Enox’s albeit with a different patch. The picture was stuck to one of the console’s gauges like something out of a war movie. She’s so going to stroke the picture and fondly— “See you in hell, losers,” Enox said in a loving tone as she stroked the photo with a hoof. June blinked. Wow. Um… I guess the trope is different for real friend groups. “Course integrated,” the computer reported. “Launch Sequence: Stage 2. Opening bay doors.” June took another look at the picture, noting Enox making bedroom eyes up at a probably female blue furred alien and had a sudden realization. Oh! That's why Enox likes my teats. Her last marefriend… Erm, girlfriend, was a new mom. That’s kind of sweet. Also sad. Mmm… The viewscreen flicked to life, projecting a holographic replica of the area in front of the ship. June watched the twin doors as their hydraulics hummed and hissed, dragging the door apart to reveal the back of the waterfall, which was gracefully parted by a pair of troughs which swung outward. “Okay, that’s cool,” June was forced to admit. Enox nodded once. “Mhm.” “Launch Sequence: Stage 3. Commencing Engine ignition.” The computer reported as the screen suddenly overlaid a green vector line from the bow of the ship through the parted waterfall and towards the moon hanging in the night sky. Oh my gosh! I’m actually going to space! I’m consorting with other worlds like a First Kingdom Sage! June squealed internally as the realization of what she was about to do fully kicked in. “Can I do the countdown?” June asked excitedly. “Huh?” Enox said, turning to look at June with some confusion. “You know, the countdown! T minus ten and so on.” Enox smirked. “Oh! Sure. Knock yourself out.” June cleared her throat. “Ten… Nine… Eig—” Enox pushed the impulse engine throttle lever to ‘max power’. The ship smoothly slipped along its entire course out of atmosphere and past the moon in about three seconds while the ship’s G-diffusers made the near-instant acceleration entirely imperceptible, thereby thoroughly upsetting the poor laws of physics. “Okay we’re here,” Enox said as she throttled back down to ‘nill’. June stared out the viewport, jaw hanging slack in shock as she looked at Equis hanging in the void, peeking out from behind the pockmarked gray disk of the lunar horizon. She could see all of it. Every last place in the world, all at once. The single supercontinent floating as a bath toy in a bowl of water. The thin shell of the atmosphere clinging to the world like the blue glow of a neon sign. It’s so… Small. June thought, her eyes tearing up as her mind struggled to find anything to compare the beauty of that blue marble too. Enox turned for a moment, frowning as she saw June’s tears, then pulled her into a side hug. “Right, space virgin. I should have done a nice slow flyby in LEO to pop the space cherry properly. What do you think?” “Borders are stupid and politics is pointless small time garbage,” June replied almost instantly. “Everyone lives in the same place. There shouldn’t be factions. Just…people.” Enox chuckled. “Yeah, that’s what almost everyone thinks from up here,” she started to tap a few commands into the ship’s computer. “I’m spooling up the main drive. You’ll feel a small pinch in your guts when it goes off. It’s nothing to worry about.” June shook herself to try and pull her attention away from the blue jewel sitting within the infinite darkness. “Huh? B— But aren't we at the… Moon?” “We’re in the right location. Just not the right plane,” Enox corrected. “Blah blah blah space between spaces, please don’t make me explain the dumbest quote from the worst Indy movie.” “The what movie?” June asked curiously. Enox pushed a button marked ‘Hit it!’, the ship lurched in space, teleporting through the multiverse to a specific iteration of Equis’ moon. From June’s perspective, the button made a large cylindrical space station simply pop into existence off the port side. “Ah man,” Enox groaned. “I thought I’d stopped right where the hanger would be. Dang it, I hate parking.” “But— How did—” June stammered. Enox facehooved and hit the auto-dock button. “My girl’s an Ifitian Scout Ship. They don’t make things like her anymore. Not since the Terrans vanished. Heck, since I got jumped forwards in time, there may not even be any of these left as relics.” Enox paused for a moment then patted the dash gently. “No FTL on this cybership. Zero to point-seven-five C in seven hundred planks. Need to go faster? Teleport instead.” June gasped. “This entire ship can teleport?! Like, cosmic distances!? But the power draw—” Enox rolled her eyes. “Oh wow! The actual interdimensional spacecraft has a power plant that’s inconceivable to a species that mostly still burns wood and coal for power. Whoda—” She stopped and slumped her shoulders. “Sorry. That was mean. I didn’t mean that personally. It’s just frustrating. Living on your planet. Being forbidden from even doing something simple like giving you a crispr sequence that would eliminate stillbirths because your Princess is all ‘Do not interfere with our cultural development’. Buck me… The things I could fix in a weekend!” June winced at Enox’s outburst, then gave her a tight hug. “I— I think I can feel a bit of that anger. What powers this anyways?” “Condensed white hole someone spun up, no big deal,” Enox explained, explaining nothing. “Uh, do you mean black hole?” “No,” Enox sighed. “Here’s hoping the observatory you run lets you guys fill in your astronomy and astrophysics knowledge real quick… You can’t even see the Star Roads.” “Is a white hole, like, a singularity that nothing can enter?” June asked, assuming it had to be the opposite of a black hole. Enox nodded. “Mhm. Basically puts out infinite power. It’s void energy bleeding into a universe. DO NOT open the reactor hatch! Like, at all. Ever. I’m qualified to work on it, you’re not built to survive that hatch opening.” June sat silently, processing this as the ship auto piloted into the station’s hanger through the atmospheric containment field and touched down. “Enox?” June asked as the ship settled down onto its parking repulsors. “Yea?” She replied then smiled. “Oh, you won’t need a suit. My doc also breathes oxy-nitro. Same rough ratio, too. Uh, there won't be Radon-242 though, so you’ll feel tired and slow after like, thirty minutes.” June nodded, taking in the information. “Okay. I um… I just wanted to say thanks for fixing my AC even though you are super overqualified.” Enox smiled happily and stood up. “Hey! No problem. It’s fun working with early infoage tech! The limits make for nice challenges. We’ve gotta take the boring exit because doc refuses to put in a couch-lift. It’s this way.” Enox led June through her ship to the boarding ramp. June couldn’t help but notice it opened with the same fog and light show effect Enox’s truck used. Nor could she help but notice the hanger looked like a parking garage. H— how is this concrete? The doors leading into the station were clearly air tight but resembled conventional commercial building doors. There was even a black plastic sign above them reading ‘Ye Olde Imperial Medical Centre’ in white painted letters from some boring font or another. Once through the doors, June could have entirely forgotten she was in space. The station’s interior was a large waiting room with plaster walls covered in odd landscape paintings, a laminate floor meant to look like hardwood covered in many seats, and a counter at the far end of the room with space for three people to sit behind clear polymer sneeze guards. The homey hospital waiting room June found herself in was even infested with the usual over abundance of potted plants and outdated magazines. June’s eyes homed in on the magazines. Galactic Cosmographic. Spacetime Magazine. Alien Encounters Illustrated… She shook her head. “Why is this a normal doctor’s waiting room? It's in space! Wait, how is my translator link working across dimensions?!” “Thunderbird patched that into the comms array for you,” Enox said as she trotted up to the counter. “She’s nice like that. Hey you wanted to see aliens, right?” June turned away from the magazines. “Yes!” Enox jumped so she could reach up and smack the bell on the counter. A door opened in the receptionist area and a quadruped creature halfway between an insect and a reptile walked into view, taking a seat at the other side of the counter. It had a glossy black exoskeleton, a long flexible tail, and a head that June was pretty sure had too many teeth in it for something that looked like all it wanted to do was menial labor. It hissed at Enox in something that had to be a complex language, but was simply too alien for June to process as anything but animal noises. June sighed in relief. Finally! Something alien that feels alien. Enox hissed and clicked back, perfectly mimicking the alien’s speech and voice. The alien passed her a digital tablet and Enox quickly filled out some paperwork on it and passed it back. The alien hissed again and Enox sat down in one of the chairs. “She says the Doc will be a minute.” Enox translated. June’s face went blank at how normal and Equestrian the whole interaction was. Nevermind….  “So, fun fact about species that evolve to be sapient tool users,” Enox said, waiting for June to look over at her before continuing. “We’re pretty much all the same inside. Just people, you know?” June paused for a moment to think. “I mean… Ponies, griffons, changelings, zebras, minotaurs… We’re pretty much the same. It makes sense aliens would be too. It’s just a bit… Disappointing.” Enox laughed. “Oh there’s plenty of weird out here! Xsthril’s species, he’s the receptionist there, they’re designer organisms meant to maintain some ancient cross-dimensional telecoms. He just prefers reception work, so he’s here. Working for my doc, a fragment of a hivemind from the future that just wants to help people. I just meant that all the little things stay the same.” “Huh,” June mused. An ordinary wooden door at the back of the waiting room opened, revealing a tall, hairless, gangly, bipedal, magenta-pink, fleshy alien with way too small facial features dressed exactly how one would imagine a doctor to be. White lab coat, stethoscope, and all. It bent down to about half its height to get more on Enox’s level. Huh, that guy looks similar to our depictions of humans… At least if the stained glass of Megan and the Clover Scrolls are anything to go by. June mused. I wonder, since Enox looks kinda like a pony, how many species are ‘remixes’ of others? “Nice to see you again, Enox. Do you remember the way to the auto-doc?” It asked in the male voice June remembered from earlier. Enox nodded. “Want me to just go through it?” “Please do. I programmed it to give you a full checkup and install the gland,” he said before extending a long, fleshy, many-fingered appendage to June. “As for you, nice to meet you. I’m Doc. It’s a name and a title.” June hesitantly held out her hoof to shake the alien’s hand. “I’m Junebug… Uh, it’s my first time for… Any of this. So, um, What should I do?” Doc let go of June’s hoof and stood back up to his full lanky height.  “Just hold still and let me scan you with this,” Doc said, slipping a small handled device out of his pocket which resembled a Thaumic Analyzer. “Then, I pop into the back, synthesize anything you might need, give it to you as a hypospray, and send you on your way with your girlfriend.” June blinked twice. “W— B— That’s just a normal doctor’s visit, though?” “That’s what this is,” Enox said as she stood up and trotted through the door into the back. “We popped around the space corner to my space doctor’s for a space checkup. Back in like, three space minutes tops, space hon.” June shrugged her wings nervously then nodded to Doc. “Go ahead then. I don’t want to make her sick, but I think I may be approaching some kind of limit for normal flavored weirdness. Vanilla flavored weirdness? This.” Doc nodded, flipped the device in his hand open and began to enter a few commands into it. “Let me guess, you’re a fan of science fiction?” “More science fantasy, but yes,” June agreed. “How can you guess?” Enox popped her head back around the corner for a second to call out “Space!” Then vanish again. “Because no one who reads that stuff expects a hospital on a space station to look like the one down the street,” Doc said before slowly sweeping the device across June, making her fur stand on end with a static charge. “You never think about how people’s tastes in decoration don’t change based on location.” June frowned, her ears drooping. “Then… The cool sleek chrome and neon space future is a lie?” “Oh! Not at all. Plenty of people love that. I, on the other hand, like a nice terrestrial homey touch,” Doc said, finishing his quick sweep and flicking through the data. “You appear to be in good overall health, barring your recent death.” “Oh! That's good to know,” June said with a smile. “Uh, any sign of anything that might hurt Enox though?” He shook his head and continued reading. “Not yet—” He stopped, frowning sharply. “Ah. There it is. But why?” June shrank back nervously as the doctor’s expression slowly went from calm professional to intensely serious. “Ah… Well then,” Doc said after a distressingly long moment. “That would do it. You have an artificially induced deficiency in a particular symbiotic microorganism found in all known post-Terran life forms. Thus, you are a transmission vector for pony diseases to other species.” June’s eyes widened, she whinnied in distress. “B— Wait, all known— How?” Doc crouched down to be as close to a pony’s comparatively short stature as he could. “Long ago, one of the first species to colonize the galaxy seeded life throughout the cosmos,” he explained calmly. “They included a special microbe on each planet they seeded. We call it the amicitiae factorem, aka the friend-maker. Without it, almost no one could be in the same room as each other without an environmental suit.” June nodded, slightly less confused but still quite panicked. “You appear to have had your biology tampered with by… Extra-universal forces,” Doc continued. “Have you ever been exposed to anything classifiable as eldritch?” June shook her head. “Not that I know of? Dusk maybe?” “Mmm, no she’s fine,” Doc looked at his scanner again. “Does your species typically remember events occurring during your infancy or while dead?” June snorted. “What? No! Does yours?” “Ah. Then you wouldn’t have… And yes we do, though we don’t spawn as infants,” he murmured, thinking for a few moments. “Well, it doesn't matter. It's easily fixed with a booster shot.” How the buck does a single life stage species even work?! June demanded of reality. Doc smiled and stood back up. “Is there anything specific worrying you? Back pain? Shortness of breath? Lack of some cosmetic procedure? Medical care is free of charge to pre-FTL species.” June started to shake her head no, then paused. I haven’t had time to see a normal pony doctor about getting rid of my teats… Okay I have, but Enox likes them… June squirmed in place for a moment, thinking about her future. I am pretty sure I love her, like, really love her. I could see us being together for a long time. Should I keep them? Yeah they are annoying and I’m worried about being asked where my foal is… But, like, dad never gave up anything for mom and look at how their marriage has turned out. A proper shiver went down June’s spine at that thought. Okay! Lets see if they can be made less annoying while I’m at free alien healthcare land. I can deal with a little dysmorphia for her sake. June shuffled her hooves shyly. “Uh… Well, I’m a transmare—” Doc looked at his device. “Yes. Would you like your genome resequenced? It would take a week to finish but you’d be fully female by the end of it.” June shook her head. “No thank you. I’m happy this way and Enox likes it,” she said as politely and least awkwardly as she could. “But um… We don’t normally have teats. My transition and uh, that necromancer’s error made them kind of grow in and stick. I was going to have them removed, but Enox likes to use them as pillows and um…” June awkwardly trailed off, growing silent. Wow, this is hard to talk about… “It’s alright, miss. I’m a doctor,” Doc reminded. “I know it's your first time off world and everything is strange, but I am still a doctor. I’ll keep anything you tell me confidential.” “Can you do anything to… Make them not as heavy and annoying?” June asked. “I can have them… Taken care of at home. But, like, normal hospital as this is, you’re still an alien doctor in a space station. There's gotta be something—” Doc nodded. “Yes there is. Plenty of species have them permanently. There’s a large selection of mammary management methods. Let me check for ones compatible with your biology.” Doc sat down next to June and proceeded to flick through menu after menu on his scanner tool, humming a merry tune as he went before slowly frowning. “Ah, here we are. This one does the most for you without causing health problems.” June nodded. “Okay. What’s it do?” Doc glanced at the device’s readout. “A simple nanite injection to restructure the tissue in question to reduce weight, improve elasticity, and add pain blockers for non-critical injuries. It will also make the weight almost unnoticeable by adding six new muscle-tendon complexes, all smart tissue of course.” “Smart tissue?” June asked, tilting her head. “Right. First time here…” Doc murmured before clearing his throat to explain. “They will intelligently move and deform for your convenience. They won't hit your legs if you run, adjust to anything you wear, and so on. Reviews say most girls forget they have their breasts until they want to, erm… Use them. Pardon the lack of professionalism. I couldn’t think of a better way to phrase that.” June’s ears perked as she remembered Enox mentioning body mods back when they first met. Oh! This is what she meant by ‘stock model’. Anyone in space has their whole body just, made convenient. That’s… Once I get my head wrapped around this I’ll have to see what else I can get done! I wonder if there’s a cure for ‘enter room forget why’? “If that’s true, then I might be okay with keeping them for her sake… Are there side effects?” “Yes. A twenty percent increase in resting volume is required to accommodate the extra tissues the system needs for a quadruped of your size and shape.” June winced at the number. Twenty percent? That’s going to make ponies think my favorite Princess is Cadence… Then again, she kind of is, isn’t she? But for the fighting stuff mostly. June thought for a moment, pursing her lips. “Uh, Enox can just take me back here to get it undone if I don’t like it, right?” Doc nodded. “Of course. You’re on Enox’s health plan by common law. She has full coverage, which means so do you. Also, you’re Pre-FTL. Double coverage. Go nuts!” “I’ll try it,” June said after a moment’s thought. “Alright,” he said, typing a note into his scanner. “Anything else?” June shook her head. “Nothing I can think of.” “Excellent. I’ll be back in a moment with a hypospray.” “Wait. Is there a cure for ‘enter room, forget why’?” “No,” Doc lamented.  ⁜ ⁜ ⁜ The Thunderbird touched back down in her hanger with a happy sounding humm of engines spooling down. “Annnnd, power off,” Enox said, flipping a switch on the console before smiling over at June from her position on the couch. “So, what did you think of your first space flight?” “I feel like we drove to Manehatten, and I don’t know how to feel about that,” June answered honestly, flicking her tail with awkward embarrassment. “Yeah, Doc’s folks are a lot like Equestrians,” Enox said as she hit the ‘return to living room’ button on the couch. “Same modes of speech, same taste in decor, same overly friendly and helpful attitude.” June shook her head slowly. “Did… Did it feel that weirdly normal but not normal for you? Like, when you first went to space?” Enox nodded and put a foreleg around June. “I was born in space. But it happened to me the first time I went planet side to a place my people didn’t rule. I come from an evil star empire so it’s a bit different for me.” “Makes sense, I guess?” June said as she stared upwards on instinct as the roof hatch hissed open. “I’m going to need a few days to just… Redo my world view.” Enox nodded. “Now that I am familiar with. First time I went to a world with people who weren't just jerks? Magical but weird. Took me a week to get back to normal,” Enox coughed awkwardly and scooted over to lay against June’s side. “By the way, thanks for deciding to keep your boobs. I appreciate it.” “It's just a trial run,” June warned. “You’re laying on them all squished flat and not squirming all uncomfy-like,” Enox pointed out. June looked at her hindquarters. It… Feels like I don’t have those at all. “Cool! Still, just… You know. Trial run.” “Well, even that’s a nice birthday present,” Enox said casually. June eeped. “It’s your birthday?!” “Yeah. At least, on my homeship’s chronometer. Why? What’s the big deal?” Enox asked, frowning sharply. June sat up, picked the smaller mare up and held her out to look her in the eyes. “How long have you lived on Equis?” “A few hundred years.” Enox frowned. “What’s wrong? I’m confu—” June’s face went blank. “And you haven’t heard of a birthday party?” Enox’s frown deepened. “Uh… That didn’t… I don’t know what that word is.” June blinked and set her down. “You don’t know the word party?” Enox shook her head. “You know when a bunch of people get together to celebrate something, or just have a good time?” Enox’s eyes sparkled. “Oh! A server raid!” June winced. “Your species scare me.” “The fact they do is why I like you,” Enox said with a sad giggle. June inhaled once. “So you know what a birthday present is, but not a birthday party. I don’t know how you managed that, but Sam mentioned her friend Pinkie who moved in with the SkyTech dudes can throw any kind of party at the drop of a hat. So you’re gonna learn! Like, right now!” Enox frowned. “But I wanted to watch the rest of Sword Art Online to see if it ever gets to be bad instead of terrible,” she said, ears drooping like a sad puppy. June shook her head. “Nope! You’re gonna have an emergency late night birthday party. You tossed me into a weird alien world I wasn’t ready for, now it's my turn to do the same!” Enox grinned ear to ear. “I love you.”  ⁜ ⁜ ⁜ Later that night after using smelling salts to revive Pinkie Pie after she learned a four century old pony had never had a birthday party and the subsequent party, Enox discovered she quite liked the bizarre little Equestrian tradition that is a normal birthday party. Enough to pass out oxygen drunk on June’s belly after cuddling to watch a movie. June gently pet Enox’s head as she started to drift off to sleep herself, still a little weirded out from her out of this world evening, though having fully internalized that if she was going to date an alien, she was going to have to deal with weird alien things sometimes. Wait a minute… June thought, frowning steeply as some of the doctor’s words came back to her, their significance having its full impact now that she wasn’t overwhelmed. The other thing. The… Symbiotic microbe thing. He said that the deficiency was caused by exposure to eldritch things. June’s eyes widened as the pieces fell into place. Sam was drawn here by Dusk, and she has the weird gem in her chest because of an elrich entity messing with her. Fluttershy is here because an eldritch entity bucked up her destiny, and mentioned yesterday Dusk recommended she move to the Citrine Hive. I had a weird medical issue that would have hurt or maybe killed Enox because an eldritch entity messed with me, and Dusk had me come here. It’s all the same entity. We’re all tied to the astrolabe somehow. Except Violet and Enox… That I know of. But four out of six fit a pattern, and I just lack data on the other two. Yeeeeah. I need to crack this case open ASAP. “Buck…” June whispered, staring at the ceiling, now wide awake.