//------------------------------//
// Deception 
// Story: Finding Serenity 
// by M1ghtypen 
//------------------------------//

Octavia had herded most of the passengers into the cargo hold by the time Lyra arrived. Derpy had gone missing, and nopony knew exactly when she had disappeared. Bon Bon had gone to look for her. Guess we've found our spy, Lyra thought. That wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. Still, best to be thorough. I wouldn't want to shoot her just because she took a bathroom break at the wrong time.

Of the remaining two passengers, only one looked nervous. Clockwork was wringing his hooves with worry, while Mac seemed only mildly annoyed to be pulled away from his meal. I guess it could still be the doctor. When in doubt, blame the twitchy pony.

Lyra held a small device with her magic that looked a bit like a hoof-held communicator. "This here's an RF scanner," she announced. "We're going to scan your luggage for anything that sends out a wireless signal. You'll keep your privacy, but somepony on board has been messing with our equipment and I intend to find out who."

Lyra examined Mac's luggage first. The scanner remained silent when she passed it over his suitcase and blanket. No surprise there, she thought. I guess Bon Bon was right; he's just a big sweetheart. She scanned Derpy's suitcase next and, again, heard nothing. Well, I'll be a diamond dog’s cousin. It was the city colt after all.

Clockwork fidgeted nervously as she neared his pile of belongings. A stainless steel case big enough for all kinds of troublesome equipment was sitting beneath his two suitcases. "Looks awfully suspicious, doesn't it?" Lyra asked. “Do you feel a powerful need to confess something before I scan it?" Clockwork remained silent, but he was starting to sweat. "No? Alright, have it your way."

The scanner emitted a loud buzz as she brought it close to the case. "That just about settles it," Lyra said. "I gotta say that I'm a bit insulted. You could have tried a bit harder to seem innocent."

"Th-this isn't what it looks like," Clockwork stammered. "Please, I know it seems bad, but you have to believe me!"

Lyra chuckled dryly. "I don’t think so. Octavia, get me a crowbar. Let's see what he's so worried about."

"You can't open that!" Clockwork shouted. He managed to take half a step forward before Thunderlane grabbed him in a chokehold. The scrawny earth pony tried to break free, but he was tremendously outmatched and could only grasp at the pegasus’s foreleg. "Please," he begged, "Don’t open it. It's too soon!"

Lyra began looking for a way to open the crate. "Why?” she asked. “What’s in here? Is it booze? Please tell me it’s booze."

Heavy hoofsteps rang out on the catwalk above them. “I’m afraid that it’s quite a bit more complicated than that,” Spud said as he ambled down the stairs at a leisurely pace, a pistol held in the grip of his magic.

The weapon looked more sophisticated than anything Lyra had ever seen in person; it was polished to a brilliant shine and thrummed with magical power. "That's one fine piece of weaponry you've got there," she noted. "That looks like Newtech. It would take a hundred ponies from the Rim planets a hundred years to save up enough money to buy that thing. How'd you afford it on a mechanic's salary?"

"I didn't," Spud said. "I've had Aunt Celly for years. I kept her hidden in my bunk. She's my only reminder of the life I had before the war, but hopefully I'll be returning to that life very soon. I recognized the good doctor the moment I saw him; he and his precious case are my ticket home."

Lyra scratched her head. "They’re your ticket back to working on a potato farm?"

Spud rolled his eyes and spat on his hoof, then rubbed it against his flank. The brown paint covering his cutie mark rubbed away. The relatively clean patch he created revealed a purple-and-gold design resembling a compass rose. "I spent the last six years living in filth," he said. "Do you have any idea what that feels like after living the kind of life I had? I had to hide in the lowliest reaches of the 'Verse, crawling around with the vermin, just to avoid being killed! I had to cut off half of my own horn so that I could blend in better!"

"I don't think I follow," Lyra interrupted. "Were you some kind of war criminal or something?"

"W-war criminal?" Spud's pupils contracted and his eye began to twitch. "War criminal? I was royalty, you pathetic excuse for a mule! I was the most eligible bachelor on New Equestria! I had scores of mares willing to kiss the ground where I walked.” 

Doctor Clockwork gently pulled out of Thunderlane’s grip. The pegasus didn’t try to stop him. "I believe I recognize you now," he said. "There was a big commotion in the media a few years ago about a noble being disowned by the royal family. Apparently he was selling secrets to the Lunar Republic, and he had to flee the planet after being sentenced to death by parasprites. You're Prince Blueblood, aren't you?"

"You are right in exactly every detail," Blueblood said. He scratched his nose and made a disgusted face. "I can't wait to go home. I'm going to crawl into a hot bath with a nice mare and stay there for a week." His pistol emitted a high-pitched whine as he aimed it at Lyra. "Please step away from the case, captain. The doctor is quite right; opening it now could potentially damage the goods inside. Throw your gun away and stand over there with your crew."

"Where do you plan to go?" Lyra asked. She pulled her revolver out of its holster, using her mouth so that Blueblood wouldn’t think she was about to attack him, and threw it away. She tried to make sure that it landed on Mac’s blanket so that it wouldn’t be damaged. "We're in space, you yu bun duh inbred aristocrat. You can’t just open the airlock and walk home."

Blueblood levitated Clockwork’s case out of Lyra's reach while she was talking. She was tempted to wrestle it away with her own magic, but his abilities almost certainly dwarfed her own. If he was actually a member of the royal family then he was probably descended from a goddess. "You don't need to worry your homely little head about that," he assured her. "I called for a ride earlier today. It should be here soon. Just stay back and you won't get hurt."

Lyra noticed Octavia sneaking up on Blueblood from behind. She needed to stall for time, but one wrong word could have disastrous consequences. Blueblood was already beginning to lose his temper and the last thing they needed was for him to get twitchy. "You don't want to shoot me, Spud. We're the only friends you’ve got in the ‘Verse right now."

"We were never friends!" Blueblood snarled. Lyra immediately began to regret her choice of words when his gun started shaking. "You spent the last six years dragging me from one horrible end of the 'Verse to the other. I've been miserable every step of the way and I want out! I am going home, Lyra. I'm finally ready to leave this wreck of a ship behind. You and the rest of your misfit crew can continue gallivanting across space and wasting your lives if you want, but I am meant for better things. I'm not your lackey anymore."

Lyra shrugged. "Suit yourself. I've got plenty of others." Octavia tackled Blueblood from behind and she quickly snatched away his weapon. She wanted to shoot him, but Octavia was tangled up with the grimy unicorn and she wasn’t sure of her aim with an unfamiliar gun.

A burst of magic sent Octavia flying across the cargo hold and into the side of the ship’s utility vehicle. Lyra took the opportunity to finally pull the trigger, but nothing happened. She tried again, but Blueblood’s pistol only clicked uselessly. She realized too late that the weapon was tuned to his magical aura and wouldn’t fire for anypony else.

Blueblood noticed Lyra holding his pistol and sneered. "You shouldn’t play with guns,” he said. He reached for it with his magic, and Lyra felt his power immediately overwhelm her own. She tried to hang on, but Blueblood pried the pistol right out of her grasp with almost no effort at all. She gulped and stepped back when the weapon spun around to point at her. "I did warn you to stay back, Captain," he taunted. “I’m afraid that our business relationship is at its end.”

Lyra heard dainty hooves gallop into the cargo hold and swore. Just what we need, she thought. Another hostage. Derpy soared down from the second level as Bon Bon hurried to keep up. "Captain Heartstrings!" the pegasus exclaimed.

Blueblood fired blindly in the direction of Derpy’s voice, obviously expecting another surprise attack. Plasma charges sizzled through the air and struck the bulkhead on the other side of the bay, one of them nearly taking Octavia’s head off.

Derpy went limp and dropped like a stone as a stray shot hit her square in the chest. She hit the floor and rolled to a stop, smoke rising from her alarmingly still form. Blueblood gawked at the motionless pegasus and stuttered something unintelligible. His pistol clattered to the ground, forgotten, as he tried to explain that this wasn’t his fault.

The former prince noticed something large and red out of the corner of his eye, but by the time his stunned mind registered it as a threat Mac's rear hooves had already connected with his face. He reared back, already unconscious or dead, and collapsed without a sound.

With Blueblood out of commission the crew was able to focus on Derpy. "I was having a really nice day,” she whispered, shivering as she tried to breathe with a piece of her lung burned away. She was alive for the moment, but Lyra doubted very much that they would be able to help her. 

"Get out of the way!" Lyra ordered. "Octavia, you’ve treated bullet wounds before. Get to the infirmary and get ready to operate. Thunderlane, secure Spud so he doesn't shoot us in the back." Shepherd Mac helped Thunderlane lift Blueblood's limp form. He was still breathing, but his muzzle looked broken.

Doctor Clockwork rushed to the front of the group and began examining Derpy's injuries. "Can she move her hooves?" he asked. "Derpy, I need you to try to move your hooves. Can you do that for me?" One of the pegasus' hooves twitched and she whimpered in pain.

"Captain!" Vinyl shouted over the intercom. "The Empire is getting closer! We can't outrun them, but we're passing one of Persepony's moons now. We could try to hide on the surface and wait them out."

"Do it!" Clockwork said.

Lyra snatched him up with her magic and lifted him into the air. "I really hope that you aren’t trying to give orders on my ship," she growled. "The way I see it, you're mostly to blame for this. You have something they want, something that was important enough to make one of my crew turn on me. You're part of the reason we're in this mess." She pressed the button on the intercom. "Let me know when they arrive," she ordered. "They've got better medical facilities than we do."

Clockwork struggled against Lyra's magic, but he was as helpless as the lesser unicorn had been against Blueblood. "You can't do that!"

"I can and I will." Lyra constructed a hardened magical field around Derpy, ensuring that she wouldn't be jostled on the way to the infirmary. "You never should have come here, Doctor. You brought the Empire right to my front door. I can get awfully cross when that happens."

"She'll never make it!" Clockwork said quickly. "If you let me, I can save her. Otherwise she'll be dead in ten minutes. The Empire won't be here for at least another hour. I'll help her, but only if you turn the ship toward Persepony's moon and hide."

Derpy shut her eyes and tried to cover her ears. "Everypony's being so mean," she whispered. "Why are they always so mean?"Bon Bon stroked her cheek, trying to comfort her. It didn't seem to be working.

Lyra knew that she was wasting precious time considering her options. In the end she swallowed her pride and hit the intercom again. The doctor had already started pushing Derpy toward the infirmary by the time she spoke. "Turn toward the moon and take us down," she ordered. “When we land, shut everything down that we don’t need. Keep the infirmary running while the doctor does his work."

Clockwork began to thank her as they ran, but Lyra shot him down with a glare. "Shut up!" she barked. "This isn’t for you. You and I are going to have a long, uncomfortable talk after you save Derpy."

Lyra and the doctor galloped into the infirmary and gently placed Derpy on the operating table. It looked more like a dentist’s chair, really, but beggars could not be choosers. The doctor immediately began snipping away at Derpy's wound, cutting dead flesh and rinsing the area with a sterilization potion. "I need a null spell," he said. "Where are they?"

Octavia wisely stood out of his way. "Bottom cabinet," she said, and sat in a corner where she wouldn't distract anypony.

Lyra anxiously watched the Doctor work. He removed a plastic package from the cabinet and ripped it open, taking out a thin length of wood. "Hold her still," he said. "Derpy, this is going to hurt."

The pegasus didn't respond. Clockwork gritted his teeth and plunged the wooden rod into the wound, causing his patient to sob and buck weakly. Lyra held her down until the spell activated, numbing the area and negating any harmful magic still in effect. Derpy’s pupils dilated and she stared up at the Doctor with a dreamy smile.

At least the doctor knows his stuff, Lyra thought as she directed him to the merging spells. Plenty of ponies die from plasma necrosis because the doctors only treat the physical injury. She just might live through this. Clockwork began working with another wooden rod, fishing around inside the injury like he was building a ship in a bottle.

The operation seemed to last forever. Lyra kept a close eye on Derpy, who was looking around the room with the kind of detached curiosity that only powerful sedation could cause. "If she dies, you die." The doctor pulled his instrument free of the wound and stared at the captain. "That's the rule," she said. "If she doesn't make it, you’re going to take a stroll out an airlock."

Clockwork went back to his patient without a word.



*****



Nearly an hour passed before the operation was finished. Lyra felt exhausted, but she couldn't let herself rest. Her ship and crew were in danger, and there was a pony lying in the infirmary that was only clinging to life by the most fragile of threads. It didn’t feel appropriate to disappear into her cabin, and she was too anxious to sleep anyway.

She ran into Thunderlane in the galley. He was sitting at the table and staring numbly at the chair that Derpy had used at dinner, toying absently with his knife. "Doc says she's stable now," she said as she took a seat across the table. "Not sure what her chances are, but he knows what he's doing. You alright?"

"No,” Thunderlane said dully. “Blueblood came to after I tied him up. The Shepherd's still with him. He didn't seem to think he was safe alone with me.” His knife slipped out of his hoof and clattered against the table, but he didn’t try to pick it up. “He didn't ask about her, Lyra. Didn't even ask if she was dead."

"We thought we knew him and we were wrong," Lyra said. "Spud fooled us. Sometimes a pony just doesn’t care. That's all there is to it."

"She was a nice pony. He ought to care a little," Thunderlane said quietly. Lyra pretended not to notice as he wiped his eyes. "He ought to. It don't make sense for a pony to be that way."

"You're right. It doesn't." They sat quietly for a while until Lyra stood up and trotted out of the room. "Come on. Let's see what was important enough to get Derpy shot."

Clockwork was already in the cargo hold when they arrived. "Howdy!" Lyra called as she walked down the stairs. "Nice to see that you're so dedicated to your patient."

"I just had to check on my things," the doctor said. "Derpy is stable for the moment. I'm going right back to the infirmary."

"No you aren't. Like you said, she's stable. You're staying here for a bit." Lyra walked to the intercom and addressed the rest of the ship. "Everypony needs to come to the cargo hold. The good doctor has something he'd like to share with us."

The device strapped to the doctor's leg began to beep. Lyra drew her pistol and held it at the ready, but didn't point it at anypony. "I think it's time you told us why we're all in this heap of trouble," she said. "Start talking. What is that thing?"

Clockwork opened one of his bags and pulled out a small air tank. He moved very slowly to avoid startling anypony. Luna knows there's been enough of that lately, Lyra thought. She watched as he screwed the tank into a small opening on his metal case. The beeping stopped just as four sets of hooves rattled down the stairs.

"Perfect timing!" Lyra exclaimed. "I wanted everypony to see this. The doctor is about to show us why we're all in danger."

"I most certainly will not!" Clockwork argued. "You can't make me. You also can't shoot me with Derpy still injured."

"Ain't that just like a New Equestria aristocrat?" Thunderlane asked. "Nopony matters as much as you, do they?" He grabbed a tool chest from the supply closet and kicked it open, then offered Lyra a crowbar. "I say we dispense with the formal tsway-niou and pry it open ourselves, Captain."

Lyra put away her pistol and accepted the crowbar. "That's some mighty fine thinking. Step aside, Doc. We'd hate for you to chip a hoof trying to stop us."

Clockwork sighed in defeat. "I'll open it," he said. "Please put that away." Lyra tossed her crowbar to Thunderlane, who dropped it back into the tool box. She waited while the doctor opened a small panel on the container, revealing a keypad underneath. He punched in a long string of numbers, then pressed a green button on the crate's side.

A loud hiss filled the cargo hold as pressurized air escaped from the container. Lyra used her magic to simultaneously shove Clockwork aside and pull open the lid. White vapor rolled over the edges of the container and obscured its contents from view.

Lyra stepped closer to take a look once the vapor cleared. A thin little mare was sleeping inside, curled into a ball and shivering from the sudden change in temperature. Two small strips of her mane had been shaved away for some unknown purpose. Strangest of all, her flank was blank even though she was clearly an adult.

For a while Lyra just stared at the strange pony. "Well, that's a new one on me," she admitted.
It took a long time for her to fully grasp what she was seeing. Everypony else seemed just as surprised, and the cargo hold fell eerily silent. 

Clockwork watched everypony anxiously, trying to judge how they would react. "This... this is a very dangerous time for her," he began. "She wasn't supposed to wake up yet."

"No, I bet not!" Lyra said. She levitated her pistol out of its holster and aimed at the doctor. "I’d say she probably wasn't supposed to wake up until her wedding night."

Vinyl prodded her wife's shoulder. "What's going on?" she asked. "Who is that mare?"

"She could be anypony," Octavia said. "Were I to guess, I would say that the doctor does not care. He bought her for her pretty face, not her personality."

"I wouldn't go that far," Lyra said. "Something tells me these two have a deep, meaningful connection. It’s a connection that smells like chloroform, but still. Am I right, Doc? Was–"

The mare in the box sat up and screamed, causing Lyra made a similar noise that she hoped was hidden by the sudden barrage of gibberish and panicked shouting. Clockwork ran to her, ducking around Thunderlane when the pegasus tried to block his way.

"Ticky?" the poor mare whispered.

Clockwork knelt next to her and put his front hooves on her shoulders. "Hello, Vision."

"T-Ticky, they...they hurt! Everything hurts!" 'Vision' became even more distraught as she ran her hooves through her mane, feeling the empty patches. "My thoughts hurt and they cut my mane and...and they took me all out. I don't remember me! They cut me!"

"I know." Clockwork pulled her into a protective hug and let her cry into his chest. "I know, mei-mei. It’s over. You're safe now." It took a long time, but eventually Vision stopped trying to pull out her own mane and lapsed into a relatively calm silence. She glared at the crew distrustfully and tried to hide behind one of Clockwork's legs.

"My real name is Tick Tock," Clockwork said. "This is my sister, Pretty Vision. I've been looking for her for a very, very long time."

Lyra watched as the doctor to comfort his sister. This trip just gets better and better, she thought gloomily. "Take her to the infirmary and get her checked out. After that I think you'd better do some explaining."

Tick Tock gently pushed his sister up onto her hooves. She wobbled and nearly fell over, her legs shaking like a newborn foal. "The unfreezing process sometimes affects motor functions," Tick Tock explained. "Let’s go; I can talk while I work. I need to check on Derpy anyway."



*****



Dr. Tock managed to convince his sister to take a sedative, but only after several minutes of pleading. She lay down on a countertop and went to sleep, occasionally stirring and muttering something under her breath. Tick Tock checked on Derpy's condition while he told their story. The crew, the passengers, and Bon Bon gathered around to listen.

"I'm a very intelligent pony," he began. "I'm not a certifiable genius, but I'm very close. I'm qualified to operate on four different species, and I could probably handle another two in a pinch. I graduated at the top of my class from a very prestigious medical academy. I build clockwork clocks in my free time.”

"That's real nice," Thunderlane interrupted. "Y'all are so special. You're a wonderful little snowflake, blah blah blah. Skip to the part that matters."

Tick Tock paused in his examination to give Thunderlane a dirty look. "I am not trying to brag. My point is that my sister could master all of that in about three months. She makes a pony with a borderline genius IQ look like a bumbling fool that can’t recite the alphabet.

"She went to a special school funded by the Empire," Tick Tock continued. He looked up from Derpy to make sure that his sister was still asleep. "She disappeared. She promised to write to me, but it was five years before I got a letter." He reached for Derpy’s bandages, and Lyra saw his hooves shaking badly. She wanted to say something about the dangers of unsteady hooves in operating rooms, but she decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.

"The letter was coded. We used to make up secret codes so that we could send each other messages in church." He broke into a fit of giggles and tried to hide them from the crew. "She hacked my pocket terminal once and made it read messages out loud.”

Tick Tock paused in his story and began cleaning Derpy's injury again. The merging spell had closed the hole, but now he had to make sure that it would stay closed long enough to scab over. There was also the constant risk of internal bleeding.

"The code wasn’t hard to break," he said when he was finished. "It said 'help me'. That was all. I spent the next two years looking for her, but I couldn't find a single trace of her in the entire 'Verse. It was like she didn't exist anymore.

"Last month a small group of soldiers contacted me. The planet she was being held on was going through a minor civil war, and they said they could rescue her in the confusion. They would bring her to me in stasis and I could take her far away from the ponies that did this to her."

The crew lapsed into a thoughtful silence. Lyra was the first to speak. "That's a great story,” she said. “It doesn't change the fact that you've brought a big pile of trouble down on us. Pretty soon that imperial ship is going to be here, and in case you haven't noticed, Sereneighty has no guns. We can't hide on this moon forever."

Tick Tock looked at his sleeping sister and sighed. "I'm very sorry about that, but I can't let them take her again. I'll give you whatever you want, but I only have what I could bring with me. It isn't much."

"Keep your money," Lyra said. "We're in a tight spot right now; the Empire wants your sister so bad that Bluespud thought he could trade her life for his own. They aren't going to give up on her easy, and pretty soon they'll have us cornered."

Bon Bon gasped. "You aren't going to abandon them, are you?" she asked. "The Empire did horrible things to that poor filly. You can't let them get their hooves on her again!"

"You don't have a say in this!" Lyra snapped. "You aren't a member of my crew, as you're so fond of pointing out. This is my ship, not ruttin' Parliament. We aren't voting, we aren't bargaining, and we certainly aren't second guessing my orders. They’re off this boat just as soon as we get out of this mess they’ve gotten us into. In the meantime, we need a quick way to anywhere that isn’t here."

Thunderlane stood up and stretched his wings. "Now we're talkin'. What's our next move?"

Lyra pointed to the knife on his belt. "Scare Spudblood into talking. We need to know what the Empire wants with Tick Tock’s sister. He's also the only one that knows how to get us moving again."

A tiny, nervous voice piped up from the other side of the room. "I could do it," Derpy whispered. She winced as everypony stared at her. "I mean, I think I could."

Tick Tock quickly began checking her vitals. "You should be resting," he warned. "The medication and sedation spells are confusing you." He tried to smile reassuringly. "Lie down and take it easy or you'll tire yourself out and undo all my hard work."

Lyra moved to Derpy's side and blocked her view of the others. "I need you to be as honest as you can, little one. Can you fix my ship?"

Derpy scrunched up her muzzle in thought. "I think I can. She uses an old anti G-bubble drive just like the cars my dad worked on back home when we were short on bits. I never saw one this big, but it works about the same. Give me a chance to find out."

"Good enough for me." Lyra pointed to Octavia and Bon Bon. "Get her to the engine room. Do everything she says. Thunderlane, you and Vinyl are with me. Doc, you stay here. You've done enough." 

Everypony but Bon Bon rushed to obey. The companion maintained an air of grace and poise as she politely held the door so that Octavia and Mac could carry Derpy away. She regarded Lyra coldly as the unicorn passed. "I am not a member of your crew, remember?" She indicated Tick Tock and his sister. "I am helping for them, not for you."

"I don't much care why you're helping," Lyra said. "Just get to it." She galloped out of the infirmary with the rest of her crew in tow, heading for the passenger dorms. There was a traitor to question, and she wanted to get it over with as soon as possible.