//------------------------------// // Trust // Story: Finding Serenity // by M1ghtypen //------------------------------// “You’re sure that you don’t mind talking about this?” Tick Tock asked. “I’m only curious, you understand. In the Core, a romance with someone of another species would be unthinkable. It seems to be largely the same out here, and yet you haven’t made the slightest attempt to hide your relationship with Gilda.” Thunderlane shrugged indifferently. He had dropped Gilda on the doorstep of a dentist’s office only a few minutes ago. The thought of a creature with no teeth visiting a dentist had amused him, and he hoped that she would see the humor in it. “No big deal,” he said. “Gilda’s nice to me, and Lyra doesn’t judge. Nopony else matters much, do they?” “What about your cultures?” Tick Tock asked. “Don’t they clash?” Thunderlane rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously. “Once,” he said. “We mostly got over it. Other than that, there wasn’t much to get in the way. We’re all basically the same, you know, where it really counts. Things still fit together about the same.” Tick Tock grimaced. “I didn’t need to hear that. I’m trying to think of a more disgusting argument for species equality, but nothing is coming to mind.” Vision tapped her brother on the shoulder. “I’m glad Gilda’s gone,” she whispered guiltily. Her brother made sure that Thunderlane wasn’t listening before giving her a mischievous wink. “So am I.” Lyra slowed down as they neared Sereneighty. “Something’s wrong,” she warned, her voice tight with worry. “The cargo ramp isn’t all the way up. It shouldn’t be stuck like that.” “Malfunction, maybe?” Thunderlane asked. “Ship’s in better shape than she used to be, but she’s still seen better days. “Surely not with Derpy around,” Tick Tock said. “We’d see her working on it.” A gunshot made all of them jump. Lyra snatched a radio from her belt and pressed the “Talk” button. “Octavia, you there?” No answer came for a long time. Finally, Octavia’s breathless voice answered. “We were attacked by the ponies that tried to stop our train heist, sir. I am running out of ammunition. The ship is on lockdown, but I doubt a locked door wi –stop right there!” Another gunshot came from inside the ship. “Apologies, sir. As I was saying, they are not like normal ponies. I am certain that I have shot both of them, but I have yet to see any blood. They are not carrying any weapons that I can see, but I worry that they may be dangerous enough without them.” Lyra grabbed her pistol. “Thunderlane, you and I are going in. Doc, stay here with your sister. The moment you see anything or anyone coming for you that isn’t friendly, hop on our wheeler and drive off.” She handed the doctor her radio and added “We’ll find you later.” She edged closer to the damaged cargo ramp while Thunderlane flew up to peek inside. “I don’t see anypony,” he whispered. “We should go in while we can still surprise ‘em. “Fine,” Lyra agreed. She watched as Thunderlane tried to squeeze his bulky frame past the raised door and rolled her eyes. “Hey, yú rén! You think that maybe you should radio Vinyl to open the ramp?” The pegasus freed himself from the metal prison and bashfully fumbled for his radio. Once the door was open, Lyra and Thunderlane cautiously edged into the cargo bay. Octavia called down at them from one of the catwalks and pointed to the crates of tea. “They are hiding behind the cargo,” she said. “I hesitated to approach alone.” “This day just keeps getting better,” Lyra sighed. “Time for some thrilling heroics. Thunderlane, you’re flanking.” She slowly crept forward while Thunderlane circled around from the side. She couldn’t see any signs of the twins, but there was plenty of room for them to hide. A pink blur suddenly rocketed out from behind the tea boxes and crashed into Lyra. She fell to the ground, Aloe’s demure frame bearing down on her, and tried to throw her hooves up to protect herself. It didn’t help as much as she would have liked; Lyra’s head bounced off the floor as Aloe punched her, and the cargo bay’s metal grating cut into her scalp. Time stopped making sense. Lyra struggled to her feet, unsure of where Aloe had gone. She noticed Thunderlane pinned to the ground, reaching for the pistol he had dropped. She looked around for her own gun, found it, and tried to take aim. She couldn’t remember afterward if she pulled the trigger. The next time she blinked, Aloe was running at her again. Lyra solved the problem by shooting her in the face. At least, she thought she shot Aloe in the face. It was getting tremendously hard to focus. The world went dark again, and her legs gave out on her. ***** Thunderlane saw Lyra collapse, but there was no way that he could get to her. Lotus had charged right through his gunfire, shrugging it off like it was nothing and pinning him to the ground beneath her. She weighed more than a stallion twice her size, and hit with ten times the strength. She had nearly bashed open his head several times, but so far he had been able to keep her from bringing her full strength to bear. Finally, she made a mistake that he could exploit. Thunderlane grabbed hold of her foreleg as it smashed into the floor next to his head. He wriggled out of her grip, heaved one of his hind legs over her head, and yanked her into a leg lock. Then, strangely, nothing happened. Thunderlane pulled with all of his might, but Lotus’s leg just would not budge. He had used this same move before, and knew that it shouldn’t have been very difficult to pull her leg right out of its socket. Lotus growled angrily and rolled over, taking him with her. He let go of her leg to keep his head from hitting the floor, then continued rolling to get away from the freakishly strong earth pony. When he was able to stand on his own hooves again, he saw the the pink twin climbing on top of Lyra and raising her hoof. “Shoot her!” he shouted, not realizing that there was no way to do so without hitting Lyra. “Octavia, now! Shoot her!” Lyra’s horn sparked, and her pistol lifted from the floor. She gritted her teeth in concentration, pulled back the hammer, and blasted Aloe right in the face. The bullet struck the earth pony square in the forehead and made her yowl in pain, but Thunderlane was horrified to see that it didn’t actually penetrate. Nevertheless, the seemingly indestructible pony was momentarily disoriented. Thunderlane took to the air, rolled over Lotus, and snatched his weapon from the ground where it had landed. He careened into Aloe, knocking them both to the ground, and pressed the barrel against her temple. “Shrug this off!” he snarled as he pulled the trigger. Thunderlane’s pistol had a special feature that Lyra’s didn’t; a second barrel, mounted in the cylinder’s center, which held a single shotgun shell. The load of buckshot tore into Aloe’s head, shattering the tough surface and blasting the rest into solid chunks of crystalline rock. Lotus screamed wordlessly, momentarily distracted by her sister’s death. Octavia used the opportunity to line up a perfect shot, and blew a hole through the unfortunate pony’s neck. When the sound of the final gunshot had dissipated, Thunderlane helped Lyra to her hooves. She swayed drunkenly and clenched her eyes shut in an attempt to block out the world for a moment. “Get’em outta here,” she slurred. “I will get the doctor and ask Vinyl to lift off as soon as possible,” Octavia said. “Please sit down, sir. You may have a concussion.” Lyra moaned her ascent and leaned against the stairs. Her entire body hurt in ways that she had rarely experienced before, each minor movement a new study in discomfort. Was it the head injury, or had she been beaten worse than she realized? She gingerly touched the back of her head, and felt the bloody patch of her scalp that had been dashed against the floor. Today had not been a good day. Lyra was checked out in short order, and Tick Tock made her promise to take it easy on her magic for a few days. The last thing she needed was to strain her brain and turn herself into a vegetable. Lyra knew the doctor would never admit it, but she was pretty sure he was thinking it. One the ship was ready to lift off, Lyra began looking for her hired gun. Thunderlane was finishing up with the cargo when she found him. “You mind if I talk to you?” she asked. The slate grey pegasus straightened up on his hind legs and flexed his back tiredly. “Go ahead,” he sighed, not bothering to turn around. “Long as you ain’t askin’ me to lift anything heavy. I’m about tuckered out for the day.” “I’m not,” Lyra assured him. She pulled out her pistol, flipped it around in her hooves, and smashed the grip into Thunderlane’s head as hard as she could. ***** Thunderlane woke with a pounding headache and a nasty feeling deep in his gut. The wind’s roar greeted him first, followed by the feeling of ruffled feathers and far too much speed. A pegasus had an innate sense of what safe flight felt like, and Thunderlane’s was more developed than most. He knew instinctively that he was going much too fast. As he looked around, the feeling got worse. He was trapped in the cargo hold’s outer airlock, and the ramp was partially down. He momentarily considered trying to crawl out through the opening, thinking that he could fold his wings in and let wind resistance slow him down enough to fly. He quickly discarded the plan; the ramp wasn’t open nearly wide enough to admit a full-grown pegasus. Lyra tapped on the thick, reinforced glass window that separated the airlock from the rest of the ship. Thunderlane saw a radio clutched in her hoof, and noticed one identical to it lying on the floor next to him. “Derpy fixed our door,” Lyra said. “We’re good for the next leg of our trip, so I figured it was about time for us to have a little talk.” “You start all your talks with a blow to the head?” Thunderlane asked. “What’d you want to talk about?” “How about that little stunt you pulled with Gilda?” Thunderlane’s confusion immediately shifted into barely-restrained panic. “Lyra, that’s crazy talk. We just got pinched is all!” “Yeah,” Lyra agreed. “That’s what happens when you call the feds.” “I wouldn’t do that!” Thunderlane insisted. “Gilda lied to me, just like the rest of you. My hoof to Celestia! You’ve gotta believe me!” “I’ve got to do nothin’ of the kind.” She pointed to the slightly open cargo ramp. “There’s the door. You’re fired.” Thunderlane looked back at the open hole, seeing in a new and terrifying light. It was a very unsettling feeling, looking at the thing that was about to kill him. “Come on, Lyra! That ain’t no way to go. Please, don’t do this! Be reasonable!” Lyra didn’t seem bothered by his begging. “Y’know, lots of ponies think that getting thrown out of an airlock happens like it does in the movies; big rush of wind, bodies getting sucked through small holes and the like. It’s not that spectacular in real life. You’ll probably just run out of air, pass out, and die.” She frowned thoughtfully. “Well, that or freeze to death. Don’t rightly know which would come first. Either way, I think you’d mostly be in one piece.” Thunderlane noticed that it was getting very cold in his little prison, and his frantic pleas for help took on a new urgency. “What are you takin’ this so personal for?” he asked. “It was just the doctor and his sister. They didn’t belong here, and I was just doin’ what you should’a done a long time ago! It ain’t like I was turnin’ in one of us!” One of Lyra’s eyes began to twitch, and Thunderlane knew that he’d made a terrible mistake. “Personal?” she asked coldly. “You made this personal, Thunderlane. We have to be able to rely on each other. There’s no place on this boat for anypony that can’t understand that.” She held the radio to her mouth for a while after that, but for a minute she couldn't think of what to say. “The ponies you fly with are your family,” she said after some consideration. “That was my family you tried to hurt, and you ought to know that it’s the only one I’ve got left. You turn on my family, you've turned on me.” “The money was too good!” Thunderlane cried. His words were accompanied by puffs of frost that fogged the glass. “I-I got greedy, okay? I got greedy and stupid. I’m sorry!” Lyra nodded in agreement. “So am I, Thunderlane. I’m sorry, but you still have to go.” She left the radio sitting beside his little window and trotted toward the stairs. “What are you gonna tell them?” he asked. For a moment the unicorn stared at him, trying to size him up. She tried to levitate the radio, but her horn only emitted a small spark and she grunted in discomfort. In the end she had to walk back to the window and pick it up by hoof. “The truth, if I can’t think of something better. Why?” “Make somethin’ up. Don’t tell ‘em what I did.” Lyra raised an eyebrow. “Why? You think some of them thought you were better than this? Thunderlane looked away from the window. “Maybe not,” he admitted. “Doesn't mean I want them knowin’ about it.” He sat down against the door and stared out the tiny opening, looking at the stars twinkling at him outside. He noticed that it was getting harder to breathe, and shivered at the touch of cold metal against his coat. It wouldn’t be long now. Machinery hummed over the deafening wind, and the ramp slowly pulled shut. “I’m sorry,” Thunderlane said quietly. Several minutes passed, and he stood up to look into the cargo hold. “Uh, c-can I come in?” he asked. The Captain was nowhere to be found. ***** Tick Tock found Derpy in the engine room, relaxing in a hammock she had strung up in one corner. She was reading through one of Bon Bon’s cheesy romance novels, which were apparently the only sources of literature on the entire ship apart from Shepherd Mac’s Bible. “Do you have a moment?” he asked. “You bet!” Derpy chirped pleasantly. “Is this about your sister? She was in here earlier, I think.” “No, it isn’t, but I do appreciate you looking after her; it isn’t easy to keep an eye on her sometimes. I’m glad that she gets along with you.” “So am I,” Derpy agreed as she shut her book and rolled out of the hammock with the kind of grace unique to pegasi. She then immediately lost her balance and fell flat on her backside. “Oops,” she giggled. “Sorry, Doctor.” Not as sorry as I am to force this conversation on you, Tick Tock thought. “Derpy, we need to talk. As your friend I don’t want to say anything to upset you, but I can’t just ignore a problem when I see one. I am your doctor, after all. We have to talk about your… condition.” The change that came over the pegasus was so sudden that it was downright unnerving. “What condition?” she asked. Her tone was polite, but Tick Tock was able to pick up on an undercurrent of desperation. “I’m not sick, Ticky. I feel fine.” “I know that you do,” he said. “I imagine you’ve been feeling fine for several hours now, but you’re going to be coming down from it soon. Am I right?” “Where are you going with this?” Derpy demanded. “You aren’t making any sense. Didn't I just tell you that I felt alright?” Tick Tock nodded. “You did, and I believe you. Why don’t we start with something else? Can you tell me what you know about PBMSE?” “Not much,” she lied. The truth was written all over her face, but she continued anyway. “It’s a sickness, it makes you stupid, and I don’t have it. Are we done now? I've got things that need doing.” “It isn’t a sickness!” Tick Tock said. “Derpy, you don’t have anything to be ashamed of. You aren’t out on the Rim anymore; things can be different here.” The poor mechanic was quickly descended into panic mode. “Things aren’t different anywhere!” she wailed. “Nothing changes, here or anywhere else! They’re gonna think I’m stupid!” She sat against one of the reactor’s support struts, hiding her face in her forelegs so that she wouldn’t have to look at him. “I’m not,” she sobbed. “I'm not! I can be smart!” Tick Tock sat down next to her, but maintained a respectful distance just in case she was feeling jumpy. “Do you really think that this would change anything about how we see you?” he asked. “None of us are going to look down on you. We owe you too much for that.” “You don’t owe me anything,” Derpy mumbled, her voice muffled by her forelegs. “Oh, but we do.” He gently touched her shoulder with a hoof, and she went rigid at the unexpected contact. “What would have happened if you hadn’t met the Shepherd on the day you found us?” he asked. “What if it had been some other pony? They wouldn’t have known how to fix the ship. The Empire would have caught us and we’d all be in prison or worse. My sister would have become a science experiment all over again. You stopped that from happening.” Derpy frowned at the floor, obviously trying to find some flaw in his logic. He was confident that she wouldn’t be able to. “You fixed a problem that nopony else could,” he continued. “As far as I can tell, the day I met you was the first day you’d ever set hoof in a real starship. Now she’s running better than she has in years, and you did it all with no formal training! That goes beyond intelligent, Derpy. You’re practically a genius.” “You’re just being nice,” Derpy whispered. “You can't tell anypony. Please promise that you won't?” “I had to tell the Captain,” Tick Tock admitted. “She decides where we fly, so she has to know where to find refills for your medication. Nopony else has to find out.” A long silence passed, and Tick Tock began to wonder if Derpy had heard him. “You promise?” she whispered. Tick Tock nodded, and was shocked when she almost bowled him over to give him a hug. “Hey, there’s no need for that,” he said quietly as she sniffled into his vest. He had dealt with crying patients before, but rarely ones that trusted him with such a personal secret. They also weren't this pretty, Tick Tock thought. His cheeks began to burn, and he was secretly disappointed when she pulled away. “Thank you,” she mumbled shyly. I should say something, he realized. Despite his remarkable vocabulary, conversation had never been his forte. He tried to come up with something clever to say, or a witty remark about some of the more ridiculous patients he’d had in the past. He wanted to make her laugh, to convince her that everything was really going to be alright. Unfortunately, he didn’t know where to begin. One poor choice in diction, one poorly phrased expression, and he would ruin the moment. He wished bitterly that he had inherited his father’s social skills. “It was my pleasure,” he said quietly, and knew that he would have to content himself with that.