Picking up a pony drifting in space was a bit like throwing a dart and hitting a bull’s-eye six thousand miles away. It took an extremely skilled pilot to get the ship close enough to board without broiling the hitchhiker with the engines or sending him careening off into space after an accidental impact.
Spitfire was one such pilot. Horte Cuising resented waiting for nearly two hours to be picked up, but he couldn’t complain about the rescue once it arrived. A small craft, undoubtedly owned by his obscenely wealthy employer, admitted him with a minimum of fuss and a gentle hiss of pressurizing air.
He removed his helmet and took a relieved breath. “Welcome aboard, traveler!” Spitfire said over the ship’s intercom. “Somepony’s waiting for you in the passenger’s lounge. It sounds like you're in deep go-se.”
“What about the griffon?”
“The tracker in her pistol’s working fine,” Spitfire said. “We’ll pick her up soon enough.”
The ship only consisted of a small passageway connecting three rooms. One was a small bedroom, one was the passenger’s lounge, and the last was a tiny kitchen. At the far end of the hallway was the ship’s bridge, out of which trotted a familiar brightly-colored pegasus. “Wow,” she said as she flashed a toothy smile. “You look awful. Did you mix it up with a dragon?”
Horte Cuisine grimaced at the sight of her teeth. She noticed, and opened her mouth extra wide to show them off. Each had been painstakingly filed to a sharp point over the last few days. “You like them?” she asked. “I think they turned out really well!”
The first pony he saw as he entered the passenger’s lounge was Lotus. She was sitting perfectly still on a sofa, one hoof draped over a mass of blankets next to her. The hole in her throat was surrounded by a ring of clear crystal, showing each crack and fracture in sparkling detail. A thin glaze of silica had grown over the opening like a tiny pane of glass. “Perhaps your code needs to be revised?” Horte suggested. Lotus glared at him, but couldn't answer. “Whatever happened to your sister?”
The blankets shifted, and Aloe sat up. Horte Cuisine gasped at the sight of her crushed skull and mangled face. Everything above the bridge of her nose had been blown away. She looked around as though her eyes were still firmly in place, trying to figure out who had spoken.
The only other ponies in the room were a tall, elegant mare and the stallion standing by her side. The stallion stared straight ahead through glazed eyes, oblivious to everything around him. The mare was a bit more lively, and lounged in her chair with an air of superiority that rubbed him the wrong way. “Fleur de Lis,” she said. “At least, that's who this body belonged to before I came along. You may call me Sombra, if you like. Lovely to meet you.”
“I might have known,” Horte Cuisine said disdainfully. “I see that you’re still hopping from one rich socialite to the next. I was rather hoping that the rumors were true.”
“Hardly,” Sombra said. “The reports of my death were highly exaggerated.”
Horte snorted. “There’s a lot of that going around. Chancellor Applejack’s brother was on that ship.”
Sombra’s eyes glowed with eerie green light, and her jaw set in a vengeful snarl. “Macintosh Apple?” she asked. “Are you absolutely certain? Couldn't it have been some other red earth pony?”
“It was him,” Horte confirmed. “I was fortunate enough to catch him by surprise. Had I any intention of continuing to work for you, my price would be doubled.”
The unicorn’s eyebrows furrowed. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that we are finished!” he snapped. “This operation is a joke! Had I been given tactical command as was promised when you hired me, this job would have been finished ages ago!”
“I assume this is your way of telling me that you've failed,” Sombra said. “I don’t see what all the fuss is about; you were perfectly willing to do whatever I wanted until now. What happened to the discretion you loved to brag about?” Her lips turned up in a self-righteous smirk. “I think I know what's going on. She must remind you too much of that pathetic waif you’ve taken in. Is that it?”
Horte Cuisine was tempted to shoot her, but he wasn’t sure if he would make it off the ship alive afterward. “Oh, I know all about your little friend,” she continued. “A helpless mare found in the wreckage of a slave ship, correct? It’s cute in a pathetic sort of way, and it made you the ideal target. Nothing keeps ponies in line like love. Let’s hope that the story doesn’t end in tragedy, shall we?”
A heavy, dangerous tension filled the air. “I have a terrible feeling that we are about to become enemies,” Horte Cuisine said.
“You have very good instincts,” Sombra said with a disarming giggle. “Are you really surprised? I called you only a week after putting that massive price on both of your heads. Didn't you think that was odd?”
His pistol cleared its holster before she had even finished speaking, and he blasted the insolent mare with white-hot plasma. The beam fizzled as it reached her and suddenly veered off only a few inches from her chest. Flecks of the burning material scattered in all directions like a spray of liquid, peppering the walls and floor with tiny burns. Lotus let out an annoyed wheeze as several patches of her coat were melted, but didn’t seem terribly upset about it.
Sombra’s horn began to glow, and Horte Cuisine felt every muscle in his body seize up. He grunted in discomfort, struggling to break the spell before she killed him. His hooves skidded along the floor as he was pulled toward her, helpless against her magic. "I'm going to offer you a deal," she said graciously. "Before I do, I’ll have to ask you something. It’s a bit personal, but I make sure to ask interesting ponies whenever I can.”
The motionless earth pony watched as her eyes began to glow with an eerie green light. He tried to look away, but in his condition it was impossible to even blink. “It’s very simple,” Fleur said as her irises turned blood red. “What are you afraid of?”