Space Case

by Six Hooves Under

Chapter 1

You grow tired of standing in the same place and staring off into space, so you pick up your helmet and go find a large rock to lean up against a short ways away. Setting your helmet down in the lunar powder at your feet sends up a small puff of dust into the air. You look down at your hands to find that you are still holding the plasma cutter. Its display read that it has about half of a charge left on its power supply. You place it back in your toolbelt. There’s no sense in just tossing it.

Looking around, you notice this moon was like a barren desert. There isn’t exactly any attractions to keep you preoccupied, so a nap would be best at this point. It's been a very stressful... however long it’s been. Soon enough, you slip into the comforting embrace of sleep.

An undetermined amount of time passes before you wake up to the same barren landscape you saw before.

Huh... apparently this isn't a crazy dream after all.

“Did you sleep well?”

You nearly jump out of your skin, but soon enough you realize that the voice is a familiar one. Looking around, you find another horse-like creature sitting on its haunches to your right. It has an off-white coat with a two-tone pink mane and tail and it is wearing something similar to an ancient Roman toga. The creature also has shockingly violet eyes. The robe has a symbol over what would be the creature's flank. You knew what the symbol is, which means this creature could only be...

“Give me a little warning next time, Virgo. And yes, I did sleep well.”

“Glad to hear that.”

You stand up and try to stretch as best you can in the bulky spacesuit.

“So, what brings you out my way?”

“How did your chat with our Mistress go?”

“Poorly. I think I set a lunatic free.”

You point at the stone dais which is still visible from where you were.

“Hmm... yes, about that. I am afraid I have not told you everything regarding our Mistress.”

You continue to stretch out as much as the suit will allow you to while your face adopts an annoyed look.

“Well, it's very nice of you to tell me this after I let Luna or Nightmare whoever loose.”

“But here is the thing, Anonymous. Our Mistress had to be freed bodily so that she may be freed mentally.”

You pause your stretching for a moment and turn to face Virgo.

“Come again?”

“Our Mistress never fully recovered from her mental breakdown a thousand years ago, despite Princess Celestia's best efforts to help. Every day for the past thousand years, Celestia has tried to free our Mistress from the influence of Nightmare Moon.”

“Okay, you are still not explaining how me freeing Luna equate to her being freed mentally.”

“Why you specifically were needed to free our Mistress is a story I shall tell in a moment. However, right now, Nightmare Moon is currently subjecting the planet to an endless night. Six brave mares are venturing forth to stop, and eventually defeat, Nightmare Moon and return our Mistress to her proper mindset.”

Mares? Like horses? No. Now is not the time for questions. There's time for that later.

“And how do you know all of this?”

“Their destinies, and the destinies of all living beings, are written in the stars. This includes your own.”

Okay, now this I have to hear.

“How is my destiny in your universe's stars if I'm not even from this universe?”

“Your destiny has always been in the stars since the beginning of time. Look.”

Virgo motions with a foreleg to a certain sector of the star filled sky. As you search the area of space for anything, you see that lines begin to form between stars, drawing a picture. Eventually, all the lines are drawn and form an image you immediately recognize.

“My God... that's a second generation spacesuit.”

“That is you, Anonymous. You are an Astral Being now, just like myself and the rest of the Zodiac.”

Your jaw falls open as you hear this news. It takes you a moment to regain your facilities, but you begin speaking again.

“Hold up! Wait a second! That can't be possible! I'm just a normal man! Plus, I just got here!”

“That constellation looks remarkably like you. You are also here. So, I would say that this is all very possible. As for being a 'normal man', you are automatically not normal as you are the only human here.”

If what Virgo is saying is true, you've gone down the rabbit hole way too far already. It's best to just roll with it. You let out a long sigh as you try to let go of your mind's last bit of sanity. You begin rubbing your temples with your fingertips.

“Okay, if I think about that anymore right now my brain might break. Let's change the subject. Why was I needed to break Luna free?”

”Because you were the only one that could.”

“Excuse me?”

”There is a legend stating that on the longest day of the thousandth year of our Mistress' imprisonment, the stars will aide in our Mistress' escape. The other Astral Beings couldn't help our Mistress because of Princess Celestia's banishment spell. You, however, could. You are not native to this plane, so many rules do not apply to you.”

“Okay...next question. Why is there a constellation of me?”

”No one knows. Not even our Mistress.”

“You said that everyone's destinies, including mine, were written in the stars. How do you, a Zodiac, and Luna, the Night Princess or whatever, not know?”

”Anonymous, just because a destiny is written in the stars does not mean that it can be read. The future is full of surprises. Speaking of surprises, here comes one now.”

Virgo points one of her forelegs out at space again. Several shooting stars streak across the sky and one lands on the the lunar surface a fair distance away from where you now stood. A few moments later, you feel the shockwave from the impact. The shockwave doesn’t do anything to you aside from cover you in moondust.

”I think you should go see what that is. It may be useful.”

As you attempt to dust yourself off, you look over at Virgo to see her clean as ever. How did she not get dust on her?

”Oh, by the by, your armor's color is... off-putting, to say the least. I can change it for you if you like. Consider it my apology for withholding information.”

You never did like the color these suits came in. They were always so garish. Plus, this was finally a subject that didn't involve making your brain hurt more.

“Sure, whatever. Just whatever you do, don't make it pink.”

Virgo grins slightly at your answer before waving a forelimb in your direction. The suit turns to a deep midnight blue with silvery star designs painted across the ablative plates. This actually looks pretty nice. You take a look at your helmet to find that the same thing happened to it as well. The visor's polarized coating changed from a highly reflective silver to a semi reflective silvery blue. The same color as Luna's eyes.

“Impressive. This actually turned out rather nice. I like i-”

You look up from the visor to find that Virgo is no longer there. A quick look around confirms that Virgo is no longer anywhere near you.

“...Could have said something.”

Well, at least Virgo was nice enough to make you look like something else besides a walking hazard sign before she left. You look over to where the shooting star fell to see a pillar of lunar dust rising out into space. Well, you have nothing else better to do, so you may as well go see what fell.

Since you didn't feel like walking all the way to the impact site, you decide to test out the suit's thrusters with the lunar gravity. You put your helmet back on and it reseals itself to the suit's neck joint. You use the vernier thrusters on the suit first. As expected, the vernier thrusters are enough to propel you into the air and get you moving somewhat quickly. This is definitely faster than walking. You could move much faster if you used the main thrusters, but those have a major drawback.

The main thrusters don't drain your suit's onboard micro reactor too badly, they just get scorching hot after an extended period of use. Your suit's thermal shielding can only do so much. There are upgrades for the suit’s thermal shielding. However, you weren't exactly high priority for receiving those when you had access to them. Such are the woes of being a cargo frigate pilot.

As you were thinking this, you had covered a good amount of distance towards your destination.        A few more moments and you arrive at the impact site. You touch down on the rim of the fresh crater and feel the heat radiating off the still hot object situated in the center of the crater. You wait a few minutes for the smoke and dust to clear and see that the shooting star is actually an orbital drop pod. And a fairly large one, too. The pod is about fifteen feet in length and eight feet in diameter.

How in the hell did this get here?

As you wait for the drop pod to cool off, you speculate as to how the pod got here. You know from your cargo manifesto that your frigate was carrying some drop pods and various other munitions.

Maybe the ship got thrown into this dimension as well?

That’s the only reasonable explanation that you can think of. And you are using ‘reasonable’ very loosely in this case. If your suit had a better communications array, it might be able to pick up the frigate’s position from its emergency beacon. The beacon would have been automatically activated due to the reactor troubles. Even though the reactor turned into a black hole.

You wait roughly half an hour more for the drop pod to cool off enough to be safely handled. Sliding down the rim of the crater, you skip off halfway down and land next to the drop pod. Examining the exterior of the pod, you find a QR code. Pushing a button on the side of your helmet, you scan the QR code and a manifest of your ship’s cargo records pop up on your visor. Well now, this drop pod did come from your cargo frigate. This news gives you hope that you could find the frigate somehow and try to get out of this wacky place. You’re not sure how, but you’re damn sure going to try.

You read the manifest a bit more to find out that the drop pod before you is an orbitally deployable suit repair and upgrade station. You ignore the implications of an orbitally deployable drop pod being on your frigate for now. This is useful to you right now. After a fair bit of effort, you manage to manhandle the drop pod upright and get it open. You hop into the pod and activate it. A display lights up. The display greets you with your name and rank and shows you a list of upgrades available to your rank.

You read through the list and come to a realization very quickly. Almost all of the upgrades listed are for suits a generation or two ahead of yours. Curses!!! You select all of the ones that apply to your suit anyways since your suit is barebones. You select the Advanced Targeting Suite, a CPU and memory upgrade for the suit’s onboard computer, an improved thorium reactor, a Multi-Spectrum Sensors Suite, improved speech recognition software, and a firmware update for your suit’s onboard computer. The upgrades won’t do you any good, but at least this makes you feel like you are accomplishing something.

As you near the end of the list, two upgrades in particular catch your eyes. They were labeled ‘Assault Shield’ and ‘Commander’s Suite’. Interested, you expand them to take a look. Reading the packages, you see that the Assault Shield is just that, a shield. Granted, it’s a four foot long, two and a half foot wide, quarter inch thick piece of titanium alloy. However, it’s still a shield. But, the shield isn’t what’s grabbing your attention. It’s the Commander’s Suite.

The package is telling you that your suit gets a ton of tactical programs and an improved communications array, but that’s not even the most important part. The package stated that you would be receiving your own AI for your suit. That’s a pretty big fucking deal. The Terran Navy doesn’t hand these things out to just anyone. The fact that AIs were being handed out in a drop pod speaks volumes for what the Stalwart is about to do. The only reason your frigate had an AI was because it was supposed to be autonomous. You were just along for the ride as a troubleshooter in case anything broke. You select the two options and add them to the list.

Finally... something I can talk to that will make sense! And it isn’t a tiny talking horse thing.

Finally feeling a tiny bit better about being stuck on some moon, you initialize the upgrade sequence. Hundreds of tiny robotic arms fly out of the sides of the pod and start replacing components across your suit. In a matter of a few minutes, the upgrades are complete and your suit’s computer reboots due to the firmware and software upgrades. The assault shield pops out of the side of the pod and you affix it to the back of your suit. You notice that the assault shield is also the same color scheme as your armor.

Did Virgo know what this pod was?

Your visor’s heads up display flares back to life. A few new icons appear on your visor as the computer comes online. A message pops up on your visor.

You think for a moment on names and one jumps to the forefront of your mind.

“Hecate.”

A female face appears in the lower left corner of your visor.

“Greetings, Lieutenant Commander Anonymous. My name is Hecate. I am a programmer specified Artificial Intelligence. I hope to be of the very best service to you.”

The AI speaks with a somewhat deep female voice.

“Hello Hecate. Scan on all frequencies for a beacon signal.”

“Understood. Suit sensors pick up multiple beacon signals several thousand kilometers away.”

“Wait, multiple?”

“Yes, multiple signals Lieutenant Commander Anonymous.”

“Cut the rank Hecate. Just Anon will do.”

“Understood, Anon.”

“Show me the directions of the beacons and what kind of beacons they are.”

“Understood, Anon.”

A large number of arrows pop up on your visor all at once. Most of them are pointed to the bottom of your visor while a single one is pointed directly upwards. You look down to find out that all of the beacons shown are drop pods. You remember all the shooting stars from before and put two and two together. You look upwards and, sure enough, that beacon is the frigate. The frigate is also several thousand kilometers away.

“Hecate, are you able to run a diagnostic on the ship from this distance?”

“I will see if I am able. One moment please, Anon.”

…
..
.

“I am afraid to inform you that the sensor arrays on this suit are inadequate to reach the frigate, Anon.”

“Wonderful... Calculate travel time to reach the frigate via space suit thruster travel.”

“Estimated travel time to reach frigate via space suit thruster travel is seven standard Terran cycles.”

“Great... I would die of dehydration before I even got to the frigate, assuming there is air outside of this moon’s atmosphere. What the hell am I supposed to do now?”

As if in response to your question, you start glowing with a purple aura. Your vision flickers for a moment and you find yourself standing in a clearing in a wooded area. It appears to be night-time. You take a look around and see that you are standing in the middle of what looks like a magic circle that old Terran cults used for rituals.

“I-It worked! Trixie did it! Trixie has summoned the Outsider!!!”

The fuck?

You turn around to find another horse creature staring at you. The creature sounds female and has an azure coat with a two tone pale blue mane and tail. She has a horn, she wears a wizard hat and cape, and she also looks ecstatic. You put two and two together again. This horse wizard thing must have brought you here.

Brilliant.

“Now Outsider, as your summoner, I, THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE, command you to bow before me!”

You stare the now named Trixie for a moment while the ridiculousness of that statement settles in.

Does she honestly expect me to bow to her?

Seeing your lack of movement, Trixie begins to fidget slightly.

“Did you not hear Trixie? Trixie commands you to bow!”

It seems she really did expect you to bow. Yeah, not happening in a thousand years. You look across your visor’s display to find that the gravity readout went up significantly. You were now at .25G. A quarter of a Terran G. This means the suit is going to feel very light as well as your own body. Whatever planet you are on, it is fairly small.

“OUTSIDER, LISTEN TO YOUR SUMMONER!!!”

Okay, this Trixie is starting to get on your nerves.

“Hecate, activate external speakers.”

“Understood, Anon.”

With an electronic hiss, speakers come to life near your mouth.

“Okay Trixie, let’s set a few things straight.”

You square up to Trixie and cross your arms in front of you.

“One: I bow to no one.”

Trixie visibly flusters at your statement.

“How... DARE you disobey The Great and Power-”

“Shut up!”

Trixie recoils with a small “Eep!” after your outburst.

“Two: I don’t know why you did it, or how, but you have my thanks for getting me off the moon. Don’t think that means anything. Three: Point me to either a Princess Luna or a Nightmare Moon. Either one will work. I have unfinished business to attend to.”

When you mention Nightmare Moon, Trixie’s eyes fill with terror.

“Y-You know Nightmare Moon?!”

“Yes. I set her free. Now get to pointing. You are getting on my nerves.”

“T-T-Trixie thought Nightmare Moon was b-banished to the moon!”

“The operative word in that sentence being ‘was’. Pay attention and start pointing.”

“T-Trixie doesn’t know!”

“Then you are useless to me.”

You attempt to walk away only to have Trixie block your path.

“Wait! You can’t just leave!”

“Oh really? Watch me.”

Even with the added weight of your spacesuit, you easily vault over Trixie and continue walking.

”Stop! The summoning spell has bound you to Trixie! You can’t wander off-Waaah!”

Continuing to walk away, you glance back to see Trixie being dragged behind you a good thirty feet away. Must be magic.

“It looks to me like you have that backwards. I am not bound to you. You are bound to me.”

You continue marching along with a screaming Trixie in tow. It looks like tonight is going to be a very long night.