“Move on intercept coordinates pilot, hunt them down.”
“Yes Shipmaster.”
A Huragok watched with little interest as one of its Sangheili masters waved his slender fingers over the holographic control panel, signaling the Purging Brilliance to bank left in pursuit of its foes. The Huragok’s interest fell more to the panel it was currently stationed at. After prolonged battle, the computer had fallen into disrepair and the floating gasbag had been assigned to repair it.
Still, the Huragok kept one eye on the view screen, for reference. The Human planet took up much of the view and looked a sorry sight from how it looked many hours ago. The large space stations that had held orbital cannons were in ruins, nothing more than red hot, smoldering fields of debris now. Ships, both Covenant and Human, lay in broken heaps and shattered hulls. It sort of hurt the Huragok a little on the inside, such magnificent machinery broken without so much as a second thought.
“The Human ship seems to be moving to enter Slipspace Shipmaster.” The Sangheili pilot reported.
“Track the ship.” The Shipmaster growled. “With luck, they will show us to the filth pit they spawn from.”
Probably not, the Huragok thought to itself. Humans jumped around like frogs when pursued by Covenant ships. They’d most likely take some random vector and flee until their trackers where thrown off, or they were caught and destroyed. The Shipmaster knew this, so the Huragok was slightly confused by his words. Sangheili bravado was an odd thing to interpret. It was a lot better to keep things simple, which was why the gasbag was working on a multi-leveled security system with nearly eighty gigabytes of overlapping algorithms nodules that could only be solved with complex multitasking manipulation of several data streams running at one thousand and three gigs a minute while also keeping intrusion firewalls from breaking and causing one loud alarm system.
“Sir, we’re being hailed from Supreme Commander ‘Vadamee’s forces!” Shouted a Communications Officer.
The Shipmaster nodded. “Put them on.”
The Sangheili nodded. “Yes sir!” He pressed several buttons on the panel.
The bridge’s overhead speakers sparked to life. “Purging Brilliance, cancel intercept coordinates. The Fleet of Particular Justice will hunt down the Human filth; you are to stay with your fleet and continue the assault on the planet.”
The distain in Shipmaster’s face was evident, the hinged jaws of the creature flexing in anger. “But we are closest to…”
“The ship is about to jump and we already aware of its destination.” The speaker shot back. “Continue with your orders or face dishonor.” The speaker flicked off abruptly to ensure there was no backtalk.
The Shipmaster growled. “Very well.” The Sangheili turned to the view screen; the Human ship had just jumped, fleeing into Slipspace. “Bring us about! We continue to attack the planet.”
The Huragok watched the Human ship jump; it was what the Humans called a Halcyon class cruiser if the Huragok was looking at it correctly. But such an insignificant ship was of no importance to a Huragok. Going back to its task, the gasbag programed the last of the computer and deemed it ready for use again.
“Set a course for the planet’s northern pole, we’ll begin the cleansing of the planet there. Huragok!” The Shipmaster turned to the weapons control panel. “Are the weapon system’s programming completely repaired?” The mentioned Huragok nodded and chirped. “Good, then let’s regroup with the rest of the fleet and regroup.”
The Huragok moved out of the way for its Sangheili masters to use the weapon systems. The creature was probably needed somewhere else anyway, so it moved towards one of the bridge’s doors to its next assignment. Glancing back for an instant and watching as the first ships began firing their plasma weapons downward, scorching the planet below.
~~~~
Apple Bloom awoke with a big yawn. A stray sliver of sunlight had hit her face and prompted her to cast off the sleep she enjoyed. Lifting herself up, the filly realized she was still in the Crusader’s Clubhouse. Stretching to remove some numbness, Apple Bloom reasoned that she must have fallen asleep after she had…
“The list!” The filly shouted in shock. She had fallen asleep before she could see what the floating creature liked to eat. “Horse feathers!” The filly grumbled as she allowed herself to fall down into what she realized was a makeshift bed created from a bunch of the clubhouse’s extra blankets.
“Great work Apple Bloom…” The pony started, throwing her left hoof over her eyes. “Couldn’t even stay awake fer three minutes ta see what the thing ate!” The filly began to silently chide herself. Now she’d have to go waste time to inspecting what was left to see what had been eaten. “How could Ah have let ma-self fall asleep like that? Ah’m so stupid!” The filly threw her hoof from her eyes to the floor, slamming it. Instead of hearing a wooden thud however, Apple Bloom heard a crunchy sound, like paper getting crumpled.
Sitting up again, the filly looked on the floor and caught sight of her list. The crinkly piece of paper looked the same as it had last night, save for one exception. Several of the food items had a black X next to them, an X that certainly wasn’t in Apple Bloom’s hoof-writing.
Seeing her list reminded Apple Bloom of the creature living in her clubhouse. Gazing up and at the clubhouse’s interior, the filly spotted the Huragok in one of the corners fiddling with its box device. Watching the creature’s tentacles glide gracefully over the device, Apple Bloom could see that one tentacle was stained with black ink. The creature had figured out what Apple Bloom was trying to do and had done the work for her. Apple Bloom began wondering if the thing even needed her charity.
Besides that thought, it was very clear that the creature was capable of higher thought, but it rarely interacted with anything that wasn’t an inanimate object. Apple Bloom needed to know more about this thing if she was going to get anywhere with it. If only she could… Wait! The creature had used a pen to mark the paper and it knew what each food item was. So that meant it knew modern Equestrian, or at least some of it. Grabbing her list and turning it over, Apple Bloom began to scribble words on the back.
The Huragok turned its device in its tentacles, trying to fix an anomaly in the wiring. The fact that Apple Bloom had even awakened was unknown, so when the little filly tugged on one of its tentacles, the Huragok wiggled a little in surprise. Twisting its head towards the filly, the creature was met with a crumpled piece of paper and a feather pen. There were poorly written words on the paper.
My name’s Apple Bloom, what’s yours?
The Huragok tilted its head slightly. Those words were English, a Human language. The filly before it did not look Human in the slightest, in fact the Huragok had not seen a Human for the entire time it had been here. Perhaps the creatures of this world were subservient to Humans, like the Unggoy usually were to the Sangheili. Possessing no distinction between friend and foe, the Huragok took the pen and paper from the filly and scribbled the English translation of its name on the paper.
Apple Bloom reached out and reclaimed the objects as the Huragok returned them to her. The filly placed the pen to the side and looked at the Huragok’s response: Hello Apple Bloom, my name is Floats Low. Apple Bloom cocked an eyebrow. Floats Low? What kind of name was Floats Low? Dismissing that for later, Apple Bloom took up the pen once more and scribbled a new message for the Huragok.
What are you?
Just like last time, Floats Low took the pen and paper and scribbled for a few seconds before giving it back. The creature had only written one word: Huragok.
What’s a Huragok?
Me.
Apple Bloom looked at the response with some distain. The thing was being vague. The filly had no idea if a Huragok was the species or a title. Maybe it was a special talent? The filly was about to ask Floats Low to be more specific when she realized she’d run out of room to write out her question on the back of the list paper. Looking around for more paper, Apple Bloom easily spotted it neatly stacked into a box. Once a fresh sheet was in her hooves the filly grabbed the pen in her mouth.
As she was about to write out her question, however, a thought came to Apple Bloom. Instead of writing her original message, the filly asked the Huragok a different one: Can you understand me?
Yes.
“So Ah can just talk ta you normally?”
Floats Low nodded its head at the filly in acknowledgement. Apple Bloom smiled widely, she’d done it! Now she knew how to talk to her visitor (She’d probably have fainted if she knew she had just been the first pony to ever make contact with an alien life form). Still smiling widely, Apple Bloom asked the previous question. “Could you be more specific about what you are?”
The Huragok cocked its head at her. Had it not been clear enough? It was a Huragok; the name alone was really self-explanatory. Humans had made contact with ‘Engineers’ several times in the past, so why wouldn’t a subservient race know about them? Unless these equines were more of a complete slave race, in which case they’d know nothing about anything. Floats Low ruled that out though, slaves aren’t taught to read and write. It decided to answer again.
Apple Bloom frowned at the Huragok’s response, which was simply Huragok written again. Apple Bloom couldn’t tell whether it was toying with her or was withholding information. The filly dropped it though; she didn’t want to push her new friend away with harsh questioning.
“Alright, so yer Floats Low the Huragok?” The creature nodded at the filly’s claim. “And you can’t talk?”
Not in the way or frequencies you do.
Apple Bloom nodded, at least it could write. “Ok, so do ya mind tellin’ me where ya came from?”
I came from the Assailing Divinity. It was under attack by hostile forces, I was ordered off the ship.
“And ya crashed in the Everfree in the escape?”
Yes.
“Were you the only one that was ordered off?”
No.
“There were more of you?”
No.
“But… ya just said you weren’t alone.”
The other was not Huragok.
“Is he or she still alive?”
Unknown. Probability of survival: low
Apple Bloom frowned again, but this time it was caused by sadness. This poor thing was stranded here after a crash that probably killed one of its friends. The filly couldn’t even imagine how the Huragok must feel right now. Apple Bloom smiled despite herself, trying to give the Huragok a feeling of comfort. “Well, ya can stay here fer as long as ya want Floats Low!”
The Huragok paused in its writing, simply staring at Apple Bloom with blinking beady eyes. The filly continued to smile, even as the silence between them became awkward. Finally Floats Low scribbled Thank you onto the paper. Once the Huragok was certain Apple Bloom had read the message it floated away to its corner, picking up its device and ripping it apart.
Apple Bloom watched with interest, but didn’t try to talk to the Huragok. She didn’t want to press it for answers; doing so might make her lose the progress she’d made. As Applejack had told her once: patience is a virtue, and the filly was willing to be very patient with this thing.
Now that Apple Bloom knew the creature was not dangerous, her options were much wider. First things first, Apple Bloom thought, Ah need learn more about what a Huragok is… The filly thought for a minute more. Without context, Huragok could mean anything. She needed an expert with creatures that were non-pony. Someone she could trust would keep her secret (Apple Bloom was still being cautious with this). The only question was who? Who in all of Ponyville could she possibly trust to not only help her with this creature but also keep its existence a complete secret?
The filly’s eyes widened and a smile slipped across her face. “Fluttershy.”