//------------------------------// // 3. Contact // Story: The Dark Side of The Sun // by Nopony of note //------------------------------// Whoops of joy and shouts of victory sounded through his radio headsets, and even though Captain O’Hara  didn’t contribute to the audible celebration, his mouth curled upward in a satisfied smile. It was hidden behind the oxygen mask he had to wear while flying, but it was a smile nonetheless. The formation of fighters flew high above the clouds and the sky was clear, allowing for unlimited visibility. Despite being physically confined to cockpit of his fighter jet, Max felt as if he had more freedom behind the controls his plane than anywhere else in the world. That feeling of freedom, combined with the adrenaline of combat and pride of victory created an incredible and euphoric sensation that just could not be described with words. The squadron’s combat mission could not have turned out any better than it did; nearly fifteen enemy fighters were destroyed in just a few short minutes of combat with his team of four jets. The battle had been hectic and intense, but not a single squadron mate was missing at the end. And now that his group of fighters had rejoined with the group of attack planes they had been escorting, pilots from each group were sharing stories of their victories. The attack pilots recounted the targets on the ground that they had blown to smithereens, and fighter pilots described the frantic aerial battle and the enemy jets going down in flames. While Max didn’t really ignore the elated conversation from his fellow pilots, he didn’t feel the need to partake in the banter. At least, until one feminine voice called him out specifically.   “Why so silent, Captain?” asked Lieutenant Michelle Hawkins, as she pulled her fighter up next to her flight leader’s plane. Max twisted around and look at his wingman. (Or wing-girl, as she preferred) Even though most of Michelle’s face was obscured by her helmet and mask, her helmet visor was up and he could see the wild sparkle in her eyes, even through the canopy of her jet’s cockpit. “Just trying to calm myself down, Birdie,” he replied, addressing his squad-mate by her squad-given nickname. “And tell me, Sir, why you want to be calm at time like this?” she asked teasingly. “We just stomped some serious Iranian ass! Gloat a little bit!” “I’m trying to calm down so I can land this kite when we get back. Ever tried getting a plane on the ground with shaking hands and knocking knees?” Max hadn’t planned on revealing the fact, but some of the jitters remained from the harrowing furball of a dogfight he had just lived through. “I don’t know about you, but I had a few close calls back there.” Michelle tried to give a witty response, but suddenly Max’s cockpit burst to life in a symphony of warning alarms and pulsing red lights. The words every pilot hoped never to see flashed in red letters on every one of his cockpit displays: MISSILE WARNING. “All pilots, we’ve got surface-launched missiles! BREAK FORMA-” he began to yell into his radio, but was cut off when he heard an explosion off to his right. The shockwave rocked his plane, and he looked in the direction of the sound just in time to see the fighter of Lieutenant Michelle Hawkins burst into flames before spiraling towards the ground, spewing fire, smoke, and debris as it careened helplessly downward.               Max’s eyes shot open and he inhaled sharply, taking in the sights of his sleeping quarters He was in his room on the Enterprise, strapped loosely to the bed. The window was directly above him, and through it he could see the sun beginning to poke out from behind the planet. Max had been orbiting the planet for a good forty-eight hours now, marking his passing of the one-year mark since his departure from Earth. It was just a dream, he thought to himself. But it was more than that. Max had just relived the first few minutes of the worst day of his life. Down to the last detail, everything that happened in that dream happened ten years ago to the day. And this wasn’t the first time. For weeks on end, Max had been reliving that awful day in his dreams almost regularly. Such nightmares were a classic sign of post traumatic stress disorder, a psychological that could have disqualified him from ever going into space. The only issue was that it seemed to surface only after he was already in space and past the point of no return. It wasn’t like Max could just turn the ship around, head home, land in the German runner-up’s backyard and hand her the keys, even if he wanted to. Of course, he could have contacted home and informed them of what he was going through after the first few occurrences, but he decided not to. There certainly wasn’t anything anyone on Earth could do to help, and Max thought people could live without knowing the one man they chose to represent the entire human race had spontaneously developed PTSD.  He’d been more than a hundred and fifty million miles from home when the first nightmare occurred, and he was getting more than six hundred thousand miles further every day. There was simply no turning back. Max was just glad that he’d woken up when he did this time, because what happened after seeing his friend shot down was even more traumatic to remember. The nightmare left Max in a cold sweat and breathing heavy as he undid the straps that loosely held him in place while he slept. The memories he tried so hard to bury were now bubbling up to the surface of his mind, and he couldn't push them back down. Just give it some time. Distract yourself. The words of the chaplain he met with after that day came to him, and today distracting himself would be all too easy. Today was the day Max would board the Birdie, open the doors of the Enterprise’s main cargo bay, and be the first human in history to set foot on another world. Having been in microgravity conditions for the better part of a year, Max found it hard to imagine going back to having feet on the ground, but for the sake of distraction, he tried imaging just that as he strapped himself into the chair that would whisk him away from his bedroom and to the cargo bay. As Max went whizzing past every other room on the ship, he began to think about the planet he would soon set foot on. None of the orbital images that the ship’s cameras had taken over the past few days showed any geological features in the environment that would be overtly dangerous, but they also proved beyond reasonable doubt that there was a thriving, technological civilization down there. Daytime images taken had revealed many small towns and villages, but there were a few larger collections of buildings that appeared to be comparable to a small or medium-sized city on Earth. There were also what appeared to be railroads connecting almost every settlement. The life on the planet was intelligent, no doubt, and that meant Max could make the call to attempt to communicate at some point or another, but he didn’t want to rush into that just yet. Max planned to avoid the locals on his first landing, and simply explore the land around his chosen landing spot, which was a large clearing in what looked to be a forest that was far away from any of the larger settlements he had seen while scoping out the planet. There was a smaller village-type gathering of structures and farm fields near the edge of the forest, but that was something Max did not plan on seeing. On this landing, all he wanted was to see if the environment was suitable for humans. There was a pressure suit and a bio-hazard suit on the Birdie just in case the atmosphere wasn’t close enough to Earth’s, but instruments on the Enterprise showed that the atmosphere was at the very least similar to that of Earth. Of course, those sensors couldn’t see things like airborne pathogens and microbes, so there were precautions. But there was no reason to get involved with the locals just yet. The plan for dealing with alie- Sentient beings, Max reminded himself as he powered down all the functions and systems on the Enterprise that would unnecessary in his absence. I’m the alien here.  The plan for dealing with any sentient beings on the new planet called for painstakingly cautious observation before any real interaction. Rather, this would be more of an extended nature walk. In addition to environmental protection equipment Birdie also stored on it things like cameras, survival equipment, and a single .45 caliber pistol with plenty of ammunition, just in case the wildlife turned out to be less than docile, or he accidently stumbled upon a hostile local. The M1911 handgun Max chose to take with him was an extremely old design, pushing one hundred and thirty years of age, but it was tough and reliable. There were plenty of other firearms he could have chosen that were more modern and complicated, but this far from home, the old war pilot decided simpler was better. And the bigger .45 caliber bullet packed more punch than most other calibers available. Max knew having the bigger gun could prove to be the difference between scaring off a large animal and just making it angry. This and many other random tidbits of information flowed through the astronaut’s consciousness as he donned his blue flight gear. Once Max was properly outfitted, he entered the cavernous cargo bay that held the Birdie.  He made his way to the open hatch on the side of his lander, using the various handholds that were built into the walls, and once inside maneuvered himself into the cockpit, and strapped himself into the pilot’s seat before placing his polished white flight helmet firmly on his head and pulling the dark visor down over his face. With the flip of a switch on the instrument panel in front of him, Max closed the airtight hatch behind him and locked it down into place. Once he was sealed inside the Birdie, the cargo bay automatically began to depressurize in preparation for opening the large doors. With his hands firmly on the manual controls, Max gave the yoke an experimental wiggle. He wouldn’t need to actually pilot the Birdie until he was safely in the atmosphere, but the feeling of control he got from manipulating the instrument gave him a small amount of comfort. With the Birdie completely sealed and the space around it devoid of air, he flipped one more switch, and the ceiling of the Enterprise’s cargo bay split in two as the giant doors began to open. Once the doors were open wide enough for him so see outside, Max had to pause and marvel at the new planet as it was slowly revealed to him. It may have been a wonderful sight to see from the window above his bed, not unlike Earth, but now, looking up at the expansive globe above him, he just couldn’t believe how peaceful and serene it looked. When Max was orbiting Earth before he left, he still thought his home planet looked incredible, but there were areas of land scorched by the all-too-recent war so expansive that they were visible from space. By some miracle, no nuclear weapons were detonated during the war, but most modern nations proved more than capable of doing some horrific damage to each other without them. Vast expanses of Asia, Africa, and South America appeared as dull, charred blotches of land, and even more developed areas like North America and Western Europe did not escape the war without smaller but similar battle scars.  I should know, the former war pilot had told himself. I helped to create some of them. But as the bay doors of the Enterprise opened up to show him the new world, Max was awed by how tranquil and harmonious it seemed. There were no other aritificial satellites or other man-made spacecraft to maneuver around, no incessant radio chatter, or anything else that humanity considered ‘progress.’ There was just the beautiful blue and green planet filling up Max’s vision. He imagined the Earth might have looked and felt like this at some point, maybe before the war, perhaps even before he was born, but now it was a planet ravaged by violence and struggling to pick itself up and move on.  Half the reason I’m out here is just to prove that we can. The clang of the bay doors locking into their fully open positions brought Max out of his wanton contemplations, and reminded him that he had a schedule to maintain. He pushed yet another button on the control panel in front of him, and the braces holding the Birdie in the bay released one by one, and the craft slowly floated out of and away from the larger space vessel. Once a safe distance from the Enterprise, small thrusters fired in sequence and rolled the craft so the planet was beneath Max’s feet, and it began its entrance into the new planet’s atmosphere. The view of space became obscured by white-hot tendrils of plasma coming from the heat-resistant skin of the craft as it was superheated by the sudden air resistance, and the plane began to shake violently. Max never really liked atmospheric entry. The shaking was uncomfortable and there was little to no control of the plane while it was slowing down from hypersonic orbital speeds. He was literally falling like a rock. Finally, as he slowed down from hypersonic to supersonic speeds, the shaking subsided and the harsh glowing from outside faded and Max was able to see again. The sky above him had gone from the black emptiness of space to a pale blue, and details of the planet’s surface were becoming more distinguishable. He was still hurtling nose-first towards the ground at about twice the speed of sound, and the forest in which we would touch down was looming up at him, but at least those were things he could see now. His instruments told him he approaching eighty thousand feet of altitude, and that was where the wings would extend, the engines would start, and he would be in control once again. The Birdie screamed past the imaginary line and Max pulled gently back on the controls, knowing the wings would unfold on their own without any manual commands.                Even with the slow rate at which the plane was leveling out, the phenomenal speed meant the pull-out put nearly seven G’s on Max for an excruciating twenty seconds. He grunted and strained as what felt like the weight of the world pressed down on his head and shoulders. The draining forces of the pull-out quickly receded as the simple yet taxing maneuver ended, and before long Max was flying straight and level, high over an expansive forest. While planning the landing, Max had been careful to pick a flight path that largely avoided any of the settlements he had observed from space. While he was impressed by some of the things that locals here had built, they didn’t seem to have anything capable of supersonic flight, and the sonic boom he was sure to make would likely cause panic to a being that hadn’t seen or heard one before. The landscape he soared over was vast and empty forest and not a living soul was in sight. Max slowly reduced the engine power, bringing the plane safely under the speed of sound, and gently pointed the nose of the craft downwards. Gradually, he descended until he was skimming the treetops of the lush, green expanse of forest. It seemed endless, until a small gap in the trees appeared, and if the maps Max made from orbit were correct, that gap was his landing site. He slowed the plane even more, until the special rotating vents vectored the thrust of the engines downwards and brought it to a hover over the grassy clearing. One last switch was flipped, and the landing gear extended out from under the hovering aircraft. The engines simmered down, and the plane slowly descended the last thirty feet to the ground. Max felt the gentle impact as the landing gear made contact with the ground, and had stop and savor the moment. He had just flown billions of miles, and literally landed on another planet. It would still be eight weeks before something man-made would be in position in the solar system to relay the ‘live’ feed of data out of the solar shadow to people on Earth, but when people got the news, every human being with a television or computer would see what he was seeing, and celebrations would commence around the globe. He could almost hear the sound of a billion champagne bottles popping their corks all at once. So what exactly am I seeing? Max lifted his visor, and shifted his focus from the instrument panel in front of him that was gradually going dim. He surveyed his surroundings to the extent the cockpit windscreen allowed. It appeared to be mid-afternoon; perhaps three or four PM by his standard way of telling time, and the sky was relatively clear. Even through the tinted windscreen made everything seem a few shades darker than it actually was, the sky appeared to the explorer just as deep a blue as it would back home.        The clearing was for the most part circular, perhaps two hundred yards across, and a small river snaked and curved through it. Coincidentally, Max had set his plane down only a few dozen yards from the shore of the river. The ground was mostly flat and grassy, and a dense, thick wall of trees encompassed the clearing on all sides. Max glanced at one of the displays still functioning after most of the flight systems had powered down and pressed a few keys around it to bring up information from the atmospheric probes. According to the readout, the air pressure outside was well within human comfort ranges, and although it would take a few minutes for the instruments to get an exact chemical readout, there were no toxin alerts going off. Max occupied those few minutes with taking in his surroundings. He went around to every window there was and took pictures of what he saw. One of the things he had to the foresight to bring with him was a generic digital camera, knowing it would save space agencies the trouble of developing and packing expensive and bulky imaging equipment. He took several photos of the clearing from every window on the Birdie. The ground, the river, the trees, even the pleasantly mild weather warranted a few pictures. When the atmospheric probes completed their tests, they gave good news. The air outside was virtually identical in chemical make-up to air on Earth, minus the inflated carbon dioxide levels. A little less than 80 percent was nitrogen, twenty percent was oxygen, and there were minute traces of some other non-toxic gasses, but no airborne pathogens or microbes that the sensors could discern. In theory, Max could breathe the air outside with no problem. But he had long been familiar with the differences between theory and reality, and that made going outside without so much as a simple oxygen mask on a different planet quite the daunting prospect. Max’s heartbeat sped up as he removed his helmet and left the cockpit, making his way to the airlock. Once sealed inside, he pressed the button that opened the exterior hatch. Max held his breath and shut eyes tightly, even as a pleasantly warm breeze drifted over him. By the time he worked up the courage to actually open his eyes to look at the grassy clearing, he could feel his heart pounding against his ribcage. Even after his face was exposed to the new world’s air, Max still held his breath for almost a minute. At last, as a slight burning sensation crept up in his lungs, he simply grew tired of the anticipation, and the astronaut inhaled deeply, taking in humanity’s first taste of air from another world.And it didn’t kill him. Rather, the air tasted incredibly clear. I guess two hundred and fifty years of industrial pollution really does make a difference, Max thought. Satisfied that the air was breathable, Max closed the hatch and went back inside to begin his preparations for his brief first stay on the planet’s surface. Being in a state of zero-gravity for more almost exactly one year didn’t make it that easy however. As he maneuvered around inside the Birdie, retrieving his equipment from the various compartments that held it all, Max couldn’t help but feel a little wobbly on his feet. After all, this was the first time he had actually stood on his own two legs in a year. Finally Max was ready for his little jaunt into the unknown. He had taken off his blue astronaut’s flight suit and changed into a lightweight nylon shirt and trousers. He also had wide brimmed hat, a backpack with all the supplies he would need for a few hours’ worth of exploring on the planet, such as water, protein bars, and a journal. The last thing Max had gotten out of storage was his trusty old .45 Colt semi-automatic. It was encased in a leather holster with a buckled flap holding it in place, and that holster hung low from his belt. It hung so low that the muzzle of the gun rested just above his knee. By now Max felt and looked more like a certain fedora-wearing, bullwhip-toting archaeologist than a science fiction hero, and he was just fine with that. He would likely just walk around for a few hours, snapping photos, taking samples, and writing notes in his journal, then return to the Birdie. Satisfied with his preparation, the astronaut-turned-adventurer finally stepped through the hatch, walked down the extended ramp, and took what he believed to be humanity’s first steps on another planet. That notion couldn’t have been farther from the truth. For the past two days, Twilight Sparkle had been staying up all night, every night, just looking at the thing in space. And by now, she was beginning to hate it. At first it was kind of exciting, but as the nights wore on, it just became boring. It would be visible for just a few minutes at a time, and then she and Doctor Whooves would have an hour and a half to try to find something to take notes on or theorize about until it showed up again. They had decided on calling it a space ship, because of its resemblance to an airship, but beyond the set of speculations the pair had made on the first night of their assignment, there just wasn’t much to say about it. The ship appeared precisely on schedule five times every night, traveled the same path across the sky, and looked exactly the same every time it appeared. Princess Celestia had been a gracious host as always, offering her personal protégé the best accommodations the castle had to offer, but they did little to ease the process of reversing the unicorn’s sleeping pattern. This night started like most of the others. The sun had just set and the stars were just beginning to twinkle, and Twilight pried herself out of the ridiculously oversized bed in her ridiculously oversized suite after tossing and turning for hours on end without getting a wink of sleep. She didn’t bother freshening up before leaving for the observatory, although the room had no shortage of methods to do just that. The sparkling bathroom, the ornate curtains, the unnecessarily large vanity, the towering window that was now showing the remnants of Celestia’s sunset, and just about everything else was leagues beyond a normal bedroom.  If Rarity caught me leaving this place without making full use of it, she’d faint, Twilight thought grumpily. But freshening up would not have made Twilight’s job any easier tonight, and only taken time away from sleeping. By the time she was out of her room, the sun had already set and the castle was closed for business. The only other ponies Twilight encountered as she trudged through the halls and corridors were silent, stoic, guardsponies. She clambered down the stairs from the elevated door to the floor of observatory to see Doctor Whooves already at his desk by the large telescope, looking just as excited as the tired unicorn felt. “Good evening, Twilight,” quipped the brown Earth Pony, trying to perk up when he heard his companion’s hoofsteps behind him. “Are you ready for another fun-filled night of observations?” Twilight’s initial response was a lengthy yawn. “That’s the spirit!” The doctor’s voice had a notable layer of sarcasm in it. “I’m sorry, Doctor. I just can’t seem to get used to staying up all night like this.” Doctor Whooves nodded understandingly. “Ah, yes. That problem plagues us all here in the astronomy department at some point or another. Princess Luna seems to be the only pony among us who is truly nocturnal.” Twilight approached the base of the massive telescope. “What time is it supposed to appear?” “Just a few minutes from now, actually,” the Doctor replied. “Your timing could scarcely have been better.” Somehow, knowing that she had spent the maximum amount of time resting did not make Twilight feel any better, and she slumped forward, resting her head against one of the many metal bars holding up the telescope and making a small thump on impact. The sound made Doctor Whooves look up from his desk, and when he saw his purple assistant snoozing lightly, he smiled to himself. There were many nights of his long career when he looked exactly like she did now, and the memories gave the Doctor a light-hearted pity for poor Twilight. He was glad that tonight he would not have to make any adjustments to the telescope, and let his assistant rest as long as she could. Of course, there were only a few short minutes before the ship would appear, and for Twilight, they went all too quickly. After a soft reminder from Doctor Whooves, she wrenched her head away and peered into the eyepiece. “Um, Doctor?” she said after a few seconds. The older stallion looked up from his desk and said, “What is it, Twilight?” “Something’s different.” Twilight’s tone had shifted from one of exhaustion and boredom to one of piqued interest, and Doctor Whooves picked up on it immediately. “Different? How?” He trotted up to the telescope and stood next to Twilight. “You know those little spots of light up at the front?” “Yes, yes. What about them?” Twilight hesitated for a second before saying, “They’re not there anymore.” She moved aside from the telescope to let Doctor Whooves see for himself. “What?” The Doctor moved in and pressed his face against the instrument. “Hmm, you’re right. It would appear as if our visitor has turned off the lights.” “Does that mean it’s gone to sleep or something?” “I’m afraid it might mean something much more important, Twilight.” “What else could it mean?” Lines of worry began to appear on her face. Doctor Whooves turned away from the telescope and looked his companion straight in the eye. “What if the lights are off-” he said before pausing dramatically. The realization finally struck Twilight, and in a small voice she finished for him, “-because there’s no one home?”   Despite starting out so well, Lyra’s week hadn’t really gone as she’d hoped. After seeing the strange creature that had supposedly written Heartstrings family tune, everything went steadily downhill. Immediately after her discovery, she sketched out a rough representation of what she saw and rushed it back to a particular baby dragon filling in for the regular librarian. They searched for hours in every relevant section of the library, ranging from biology to musical theory, but to the minty unicorn’s dismay, there was no mention of anything quite like the image her experiment produced. What made things worse was that even after her friends got back from Canterlot, Twilight stayed behind. Lyra had no doubts in Spike’s knowledge of the library, but she still would have preferred to work with Princess Celestia’s personal protégé. But alas, Twilight didn’t specify when she would be back, and the research came to a grinding halt. However, soon Lyra remembered that there was one other pony, or zebra, rather, that knew about things that stumped even a brainiac like Twilight Sparkle a few times. So, that day, with her sketch, lyre, and spell book stowed in saddlebags, Lyra set off into the Everfree Forest to show her findings to Zecora. The forest lost some of its intimidation in the past two years, after Twilight and her friends ventured into it multiple times and come out for the most part unscathed, so ponies weren’t as afraid of it as they were before. However, once somepony actually got lost in it, the forest was very intimidating indeed, especially so at night. Now, as the crickets began to chirp, Lyra deeply regretted waiting until the late afternoon to venture into the forest. The sun had been shining brightly as the unicorn began her hike, and the bright afternoon sunshine quickly faded into a golden dusk, which in turn became night. Without the sun, Lyra quickly lost the trail that led to Zecora’s hut. Soon she decided to turn right around and try again tomorrow, but the decision came too late. It extremely dark as the dense trees above blotted out any moonlight, and any direction looked the same as all the others. All Lyra knew was that she could see nothing but the trees directly in front of her, and blackness beyond that. A small but sudden crack reached the timid unicorn’s ears, and she jumped a foot in the air and yelped in fear. Upon landing, she frantically searched her lightless surroundings for the source of the noise with wide eyes and flat ears. Upon lifting one of her front hooves, Lyra noticed a small twig that was broken in two pieces under it. Okay, Lyra, she thought to herself. Pull yourself together. It was just a twig. You’re not getting eaten tonight. At the moment the thoughts ran through her mind, Lyra noticed a small pinprick of light off in the distance. By now, she didn’t really mind that she never made it to Zecora’s hut. All she wanted to do was get out of the forest and go home. Her golden eyes were still wide with anxiety, but her ears perked back up as Lyra made off in the direction of the light in a hurried but cautious trot, overjoyed and relieved at the thought of reaching the end of the forest. As she got closer, she got even more hopeful. The small point of light turned into a pony-sized gap in the wall of trees, and moonlight was becoming visible. As excited as she was to get out of the forest, Lyra was careful to not go too fast. The last thing she wanted was to twist an ankle and get stuck this close to the edge. Finally, she hopped through gap. Lyra breathed a sigh of relief as she felt the cool grass under her hooves rather than the dead leaves and dirt that existed on the sunless forest floor. Then she opened her eyes, and internally groaned in despair. This wasn’t Ponyville, or anything else even remotely familiar. It was just a simple clearing. It was nothing more than a large patch of grass surrounded by more trees. Lyra’s head and ears drooped again, and she looked down at her hooves sadly. Then, something caused her to look up again. A big, gray, metal… thing was sitting in the middle of the field. It was the size of a house, but didn’t in any way resemble a house. It looked made of metal mostly, with a few small windows in seemingly random places. The metal sections met in angles that all seemed to be pointing in one direction, as if it were supposed to move in that direction. There were numerous protrusions jutting out from all over. Some looked like big tubes attached to the sides, and others were long, flat, and extended out horizontally like wings. There was a concentration of windows towards the front, where most of the angles seemed to meet. It stood on three small complicated-looking pillars coming out of the bottom that had wheels on the end touching the grass. Lyra didn’t move at first. She just stood there, staring and occasionally blinking, at the big, curious, well… thing. She didn’t know how else to describe it. There was just this big thing sitting in the middle of a clearing in the Everfree Forest. At some point, a notion entered the perplexed unicorn’s mind to look around the clearing to see if anything else unusual happened to accompany the big thing. When her golden eyes scanned the rest of the moonlit clearing, she saw something else. It was considerably smaller, and Lyra found that she could find words to describe this one. A few dozen feet from the thing lay an unmoving figure, somewhat indistinguishable in the tall grass and the darkness. And it seemed to be breathing. At least, that’s what a steady rise and fall of its midsection usually meant. It stayed still and didn’t move, but the creature definitely seemed to be breathing. Maybe something was sleeping? It was the middle of the night after all, and most creatures slept at this time. Lyra crept closer to the smaller thing, trying to get a better look at it. Perhaps there was something, or somepony, sleeping there? And maybe, if it were somepony, they could help her find her way home. But as she got closer, Lyra noticed that this creature was not a pony at all. The moonlight was bright enough that she could see its two long legs stretched out in the grass, and its arms folded loosely and fingers interlaced over the midsection that was rising and falling steadily. She could also see its flat, rounded face with a large forehead, closed eyes, pointed nose, and sharp chin. The closer she got, the more the figure resembled the one in her magical image. It wasn’t identical; this one had short, dark hair instead of the long flowing red mane and was dressed in a tan shirt and pants, but it was definitely the same kind of creature. As soon as she was sure, Lyra immediately perked up and smiled so big at her discovery a faint squee could be heard, and she crept even closer. Maybe this won’t be a total waste after all, she thought as she got closer to distinguish its finer features. If only it wasn’t asleep. Then I could ask it what it is. Lyra tried to be as quiet as she could, but dumb luck had other ideas. As soon as she thought those words, her hoof came down on another twig, breaking it two with a loud crack, and whatever it was apparently woke up at the sound of the snapping twig. In the blink of an eye it shot up into a sitting position and with its arm produced some sort of metal tube that glinted in the moonlight and made an ominous clicking sound when one of the fingers holding it pulled back a lever at the rear. Lyra screamed, dropped her saddlebags, and darted back into the darkness of the trees as fast as she could. She dove into a bush, curled up in a ball, and did her best not to move. Maybe I am getting eaten tonight, she thought.