Jacks stopped to catch his breath. Walking across the flats in-between the REPCONN Headquarters had been the easy part of the journey. The difficult part was climbing the steep slopes of the uneven mountains above Vault 19. It had taken them long enough to find a slope that he could crawl up, much less maneuvering their way around sudden drops and boulders. All the while the pillar of black smoke was growing bigger and closer with each step.
“Ugh. Eddy, are we there yet?”
The floating eyebot beeped reassuringly, which Jacks understood as “--Just over this ridge.--” Even though the robot spoke with beeps and whistles, Jacks could understand it. He would have tried figuring out an explanation, but he, like he did with so many other things, simply shrugged and went along with it.
“Thank goodness. All this climbing is getting sand in my boots.”
ED-E stopped at the incline’s crest to wait for Jacks, who caught back up a second later. Looking down from the ridge, they saw a relatively large, level area surrounded by other ridges like the one they stood on now. The rocket rested (roughly) in the center of the level area, which Jacks thought to be strangely iconic. There was a scorched trail of sand behind the ship, showing that it had dug itself into the ground.
As for the rocket itself, from his standpoint Jacks thought it looked like any other generic Earth rocket. It had a pointed tip, looked pretty fat in the middle, and had three fins sticking out from the ship’s bottom around the three engines.
“Man, ROBco should have kept their rockets on a diet, else maybe they wouldn’t be falling from the sky like a skydiving… fat… person…” Jacks thought to himself before looking down at his Pipboy’s hud. The surrounding area appeared clear, but he tapped the screen to make sure it wasn’t just the pipboy going on the fritz again.
“Well, I’m not picking up any life signs.” He turned to ED-E. “You getting anything?”
ED-E beeped informatively. “--I am picking up the faint signature of a Mr. Gutsy near the ship.--”
“Alright then, maybe it knows what that ship’s been up to.”
Jacks took a step forward. However, he had forgotten that he was at the top of a steep slope. His foot made contact with air (which has a nasty tendency to not be solid), causing him to fall forward into an uncontrollable tumble down the sandy slope. ED-E’s frantic beeps went unnoticed as Jacks continued to tumble, before his face eventually slammed into a particularly sandy spot at the bottom of the incline. He lay sprawled out and motionless in the sand for a moment as ED-E floated down the slope to his side.
The eyebot nudged his side cautiously, resulting in a muffled ‘mmm’ from where Jacks’ face was hidden beneath the sand. Shortly after, Jacks pushed himself off the ground and coughed up any sand that had found its way into his mouth and throat. He rolled over and sat up before grabbing the desperado cowboy hat and authority glasses from where they lay in the sand and placing them in their respective places on his head. He pulled a bottle of purified water out from a pouch on the inside of his cape and took a massive swig, drinking the entire thing in one go.
Jacks tossed the empty bottle onto the dune behind him and smiled. “Ahh… That was fun.” He stood up slowly, bending over backwards and cracking his spine in the process. “Besides, A rolling stone gathers no radiation, eh?”
ED-E shook his head/body.
Jacks stepped closer to the scorched rocket, looking over its finer details. When he got close enough, he rubbed some of the soot away with his gloves, revealing a ROBco logo. His initial thought on the rocket’s origin was that it was one of the three that he helped Jason Bright and his group of religious ghouls use to take them to their “promised land.”
However, it was only now that he remembered that the Mr. Gutsy back at the ROBco headquarters had said something about robot-piloted rockets flying throughout the galaxy during its tour of the museum. Maybe this one had gotten lost or was trying to return for whatever reason.
As Jacks walked to the other side of the ship, what he found all but confirmed his theory that this was one of ROBco’s intergalactic ships. A Mr. Gutsy robot lay a foot or two away from the ship’s open hatch, just like ED-E had mentioned. It was shooting streams of sparks from an eye and other joints; most likely damage from its less-than-smooth landing.
“Hey ED-E, see if you can get anything from that bot’s memory banks, would ya’? I’m gonna check out the ship.” ED-E beeped in acknowledgment.
The ship’s hatch was plenty big for Jacks to fit through, allowing him to bend over and step inside the ship’s interior with ease. The pilot’s controls and Gusty-fitted seat were on the ship’s ceiling. Wait, no; Jacks was on the ceiling, and the controls were on the floor. The ship must have flipped in its decent.
Aside from the controls, the pilot’s seat, and two other (human-fitted) seats behind the pilot’s seat, the ship was relatively empty inside. However, Jacks noticed a large sack at the back of the ship. He cautiously approached the sack before slowly opening it up. His mind nearly popped at what he saw inside.
Afraid he was seeing things, he rushed back outside in order to see the sack’s contents in better lighting. ED-E noticed Jacks’ frantic behavior and unplugged from the Mr. Gutsy to see what the hubbub was about. When Jacks opened the sack again the happy expression on his face grew as he screamed excitedly.
“Holy hot-cakes from hell! This friggin sack is filled with all sorts of shit!” ED-E hovered closer to try and look in the bag. “There’s muffins! Cupcakes! Regular cakes! And even PIES! FREAKING PIES, ED-E!”
The eyebot floated backwards at his companion’s outburst and began beeping uneasily. “--take it easy, would you? Besides, what if it’s a trap? They could be poisoned.--”
“What?! Who in their right minds would poison a perfectly good pie?” Jacks pulled a pristine pie with red filling out and set the sack down. “…Although, I’m not familiar with this kind of pie.”
He took off his glove and put it in one of his cape’s pockets. He cautiously stuck one of his bare fingers in the middle of the pie, covering it in a thick, red goop. The slime’s red texture made his lips water as he looked at it for a moment before poking it in his mouth and licking it up. The taste was so amazing that it came close to making him swoon.
“Oh GOD that’s delicious! Thank you, thank you for this amazing gift!” He cried out to the heavens before scooping an entire handful of the filling out and shoving it in his mouth.
He may not have been a saint (heck, nobody was in the wasteland), but he liked to pride himself on being a religious man. He had found and read what he could from what was left of a pre-war bible in his youth, and he had absolutely been enthralled by the concept. He had since come to love and fear the almighty Lord and savior, giving him something to truly believe in and much needed spirit when he found himself in grim situations.
But right now he could have sworn he was tasting a piece of heaven as he continued to gulp down the pie. The jelly-like filling had a mind-blowing sweetness to it, and the juicy chunks scattered within added a sweetish-tart zest that melted his taste buds. After swallowing the mouthful he had been savoring he took a deep breath.
“ED-E, is there anything in your databanks that might tell me what this kind of pie is?” He scooped more pie into his mouth as the eyebot floated closer to better examine the quickly disappearing pie.
ED-E began beeping informatively. “--According to my information, it appears to be some kind of pre-war pie; most likely what was known as a ‘cherry pie.’ The majority of its ingredients have long since gone extinct from the nuclear fallout.--”
“Dam, wut a sham,” Jacks muttered through the pie in his mouth. “Waet, then wut ish it doin heur?”
“--From what I was able to gather from the Mr. Gusty unit, if he was to come across any life forms in his pre-assigned route, he was to take a living example and return it immediately to earth for diagnostics. I came across information suggesting that he did in fact find an alien species, but the data has been corroded beyond recognition by unknown means.--”
Jacks audibly gulped the pie. “So… what you’re saying is that it brought an alien here? And that this pie…”
“--Is most likely an alien pie. As well as the other desserts you found.--”
Jacks blinked dumbly. “Huh…” he looked from the pie to the sack of sweets. “So if this is alien food, and the Gusty was supposed to bring an alien life form, then where is the…”
“HEY!”
Jacks dropped the pie and whipped out his anti-material rifle, spinning around in a flash and pointing it at the source of the shrill shout. However, he was taken aback by what he saw at the end of his rifle’s barrel. It appeared to be some kind of freaky, pink dog with curly hair and no toes. Above its snout were two massive, blue eyes; which were staring at him with apparent discontent. He had seen a lot of freaky stuff in his journeys across the wild, wild wasteland, but this thing easily took the cake as the most unexpected animal he had come across.
Jacks darted his eyes around the surrounding area while keeping his rifle pointed at the pink mutant’s freaky head. Surely this thing didn’t just talk. But… there was nobody else around. That, and there was more than likely an alien in the whereabouts. He turned his gaze back to the pink animal.
“…You just talk?”
“Yea! And I don’t appreciate you eating my pies! The least you could do is ask before you snarf them down like its nopony’s business!”
“’Nopony’s?’ The hell is that supposed to mean,” Jacks thought to himself. “Hey uh, ED-E; you… you got anything, cause I’m drawing blanks on this one.”
ED-E beeped curiously. “--My data says that this is supposed to be a pony, a species long to be extinct. However, I’m sure that it’s not supposed to be pink. …or talk.--”
“Huh…” An awkward silence ensued as Jacks and the pink ‘pony’ stared each other in the eye. “So, uh… sorry about the pie?”
The pony’s stern expression snapped to one of unbridled happiness. “Okie dokie, thanks for apologizing! So, what’s your name?”
Jacks blinked. “Uh, you can call me the Courier for now, I guess.”
“Ooo! A mailmare! You know, I know a mailmare back in Ponyville. She’s a bit klutzy, but when it comes to delivering mail there’s none better than her! At least, that I know of. Oh, and my name is Pinkie Pie!”
Jacks blinked again. His mind was still spinning a bit from the overwhelming taste of pie, making the pony’s sentence even more nonsensical. It took a moment for his brain to grab hold of the animal’s name amongst the sudden, unexpected story. Jacks smiled a bit as he cautiously pulled his rifle out of the pony’s face before kneeling down and extending his bare hand towards it.
“Welcome to Earth, I guess. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Likewise!” Pinkie placed her hoof in Jacks’ hand.
His fingers wrapped around her hoof firmly as the two exchanged a solid handshake while exchanging an unwavering gaze into each other’s eyes. It was not the first alien contact, true, but it was the first one that didn’t end with the aliens trying to vaporize everything in sight before being brutally murdered. Ah, good times…