//------------------------------// // Chapter 08 // Story: Second Contact // by SpartanD014 //------------------------------// CHAPTER 08 The next few days were, fortunately, uneventful for Adam and his pony assistants. They had returned the day after the incident with the manticore, and had managed to finish removing the damaged components of the energy channeling section. Adam had noticed that a lot of smaller parts beneath those components had been broken as well, and they had to remove them too. By the time they were done, a rainstorm had started up, and they were forced to postpone their work yet again. The next day, they had finally begun to install the replacement parts, and by the middle of the fourth day of working, the power channeling components were fixed. Adam stood back, impressed at the work that had been accomplished. He had expected the first part of reactor repairs to take at least five days, but even with delays, they had finished in four. He looked back, and realized that the telekinesis ability of the unicorns was probably the reason that they had finished so effectively. Adam jumped down from the top of the pelican, landing in front of Princess Luna, Twilight Sparkle, and her group of friends. By now the sun was high in the sky, and Adam’s chrono read that it was 1200 hours. A good time for lunch, he thought. Adam began to make for the entrance to the pelican, when he was intercepted by a very eager Doctor Gazer. “So, what’s next?” he asked, excited. “I was thinking lunch,” Adam said. Gazer frowned, but ultimately nodded as Adam heard his stomach growl. “Very well,” the unicorn replied. “Would you care to join us today? Although I feel as though I already know what the answer will be…” Adam shook his head. “No thanks, Doctor,” Adam responded. “I’ll just eat inside.” Star Gazer sighed, and stepped aside, allowing the Spartan passage into the dropship. Once inside, Adam hit the switch to close the hatch, and he sat down on the seats. The hatch closed with a hiss, and Adam hit the seals on his helmet, taking it off. He normally would keep it off always, but he was still wary around the ponies. It was better to err on the safe side and keep it on. Adam retrieved a MRE from the box that he had set up by his weapon case, and peeled it open. The food tasted horrible, but it was nutritious enough to keep him in good health. He ate in solemn silence, thinking over the odds of ever getting rescued. Lightning had been en-route to a deep space monitoring outpost that was further out than any other UNSC colony or base. When they dropped out, they were still about a day and a half away from reaching the station. That was still far out enough that it was possible that nobody would catch his beacon, and he could be stuck here forever. Adam shook away the pessimistic thoughts, and focused instead on finishing his meal. He was interrupted mid-bite as he heard a knock on the back hatch. He finished chewing, swallowed, and put his helmet back on, before finally the Spartan walked to the hatch and opened it. Adam looked down, and saw Twilight Sparkle. “Yes?” Adam asked. Twilight paused for a moment, looking inside of the Pelican. Something seemed to be troubling her. “Twilight?” This shook her out of whatever was going on in her head, and she once again focused on Adam. “Um…” she faltered. “We’re all finished eating, and are ready to continue when you are…” Twilight then walked back over to the rest of the group. Adam regarded her curiously, wondering what was troubling her. He followed her path to the other ponies, and his eyes settled on Princess Luna. She was levitating an unraveled scroll in the air, her expression grave. Adam cautiously walked over. “What’s going on?” he asked. Luna’s head snapped upwards, and she looked at Adam. Immediately her expression changed to one of forced content. “Oh, nothing,” she said, smiling. “Just some small problems with our neighboring countries, nothing bad.” This got Adam thinking. Sure, he had seen their guards, but they seemed to be fairly poorly experienced. When he had taken Princess Celestia hostage, they had all faltered, and allowed fear to control them. That was a sure sign that they were not hardened soldiers, like him. Adam wondered for a moment when the last time the ponies had a war was. They always were very joyful, and military and defense seemed to be at the back of all of their minds. His thoughts were interrupted as Doctor Gazer approached, levitating his tablet. “So,” said the unicorn scientist. “Shall we continue with repairs?” Adam nodded and called up the reactor diagram on his HUD. He then selected the second broken area, the parts that actually collect the energy produced by the fusion. He confirmed the changes, and sent the update to all of the tablets. Adam looked at Star Gazer’s tablet as it changed to show the new section. “Right then,” he said. “I’ve updated your tablets. Same process as last time: remove broken pieces, clean everything up, and put in the new pieces.” Gazer and Skychaser both nodded, and made their way to the top of the pelican. Doctor Gazer painstakingly climbed the human-designed ladder, while Skychaser simply glided up. “I’ve estimated that this part will take the next several days to complete,” Adam continued. “There are a lot of parts involved in this damaged area, and most of them are tiny. Your magic should come in handy with removing and replacing them, but there’s still quite a lot.” Doctor Gazer nodded as he scrutinized the part of the reactor that they were about to repair. “Very well,” he said, still eyeing the reactor. “Where shall we begin here?” Adam climbed up the ladder, and moved in next to Star Gazer. “I’ll remove most of the plating here first,” the Spartan replied. “Then I’ll get to work on the bigger pieces. Once I’m done with that, which probably won’t be until tomorrow, you can get to work on the smaller ones.” “Alright,” sighed Doctor Gazer. “I shall leave you to it, then. In the meantime, I would very much like to study these reactor schematics… If you require my assistance, please simply call for me.” Star Gazer slowly climbed down the ladder, and sat down by the spare parts with the tablet Adam had loaned to him. Adam reached for the blowtorch (which they had decided to keep on top of the pelican, for convenience’s sake), and began to cut through the larger parts. Princess Luna’s day had been off to a good start. She woke up in her castle quarters, had breakfast, gathered up the guards and scientists, and teleported to Ponyville to meet up with Twilight Sparkle and her friends. From there, they walked to Delta’s crash site deep within the Everfree forest. The repairs had been going quite well, when they had decided to break for a brief lunch. It was during this lunch that Princess Luna’s day took a wrong turn. She received a letter from her sister, Princess Celestia, which, as soon as she got it, she knew did not contain good news. The contents of the letter were regarding three pony archaeologists, who had found a set of ruins on the Equestria-Gryphonia border. The Griffons had always been aggressive when it came to border patrol, and when the archaeologists exited from the other side of the ruins and found themselves in Gryphonia, the Griffons were less than pleased. Now the archaeologists were being held captive, and the Griffons were demanding that their territory be expanded to encompass the ruins. Luna scowled at the prospect of giving up so much land just to appease the barbaric creatures. For a reason she never understood, the Griffons had always had a strange infatuation with ancient pre-historic ruins. These were no different from the ones that were already in their territory. From what Luna had been told, they were collapsed in most areas, were made of a decaying brown stone, and served no clear purpose whatsoever. When Luna got heated about something (particularly threats to her subjects), she became very grumpy. It was for this reason that she had distanced herself from the other ponies in the clearing, so as not to focus her anger on them. Rather, she channeled this anger into energy, and slowly began to clear her mind of her troubles, instead focusing on the good things going on. She looked up to Delta, who was leaning over the reactor on top of his ship. He had just finished cutting another piece out, and he threw it over the edge of the craft into a trash pile that had been accumulating over the past few days. Immediately after he threw it over, he began cutting another piece. As she watched the human work, she wondered if humans ever had wars. Delta was a soldier, and he was obviously well trained and had some experience, so it seemed as though they did. However, it seemed that he was just as good at healing as he was at killing. Luna found this curious. She hoped that the humans who would eventually come to rescue him would not be too violent. Luna had, on several occasions, attempted to enter Delta’s mind, to find out more about him, and more about humans. Every time ended in failure, as his mind seemed to be very well protected against her magical intrusions. In the brief moment that she made contact with his mind, all she felt was great determination… and great sadness. The sadness was almost overwhelming to her. It reminded her of the sadness she felt when she was banished to the moon, but his was worse. Whatever had happened to cause this sadness, he had made no attempt to tell the ponies, and he hid it very well. Luna moved her gaze to her sister’s protégé, Twilight Sparkle. She was sitting in the shade provided by Delta’s crashed starship, reading something on the tablet that had been given to her. Luna stood up and wandered over to her. “Hello, Twilight Sparkle,” Luna said, smiling. Twilight looked up, and smiled back. “Hello, Princess,” she replied, then looked back at her tablet. “What is it that you are doing?” Luna inquired, as she craned her neck to see what was on the screen. Twilight lowered the tablet, offering the Princess a view. “Delta gave me access to some other parts of the tablet,” she explained. “I’m currently reading one of the books that is on here.” “’One’ of the books?” Luna asked, growing confused. Twilight looked up at her, excited. “Yes!” she said. “This device has many functions, including the storage of dozens upon dozens of books!” Luna’s eyes widened. “Really?” Luna said disbelievingly. “What book are you reading right now?” “An astronomy book,” she said, smiling sheepishly. “As I suspected, the human’s knowledge of the cosmos vastly outmatches our own. They know many things that are hundreds of years ahead of us!” Twilight began to use her hoof to search for a section of the book. “I also found a section that talks about how I think Delta arrived here,” Twilight began. Finally, she stopped moving her hoof, and came to stop at a page titled ‘SHAW-FUJIKAWA TRANSLIGHT ENGINE’. “They use something that they call ‘slipstream space’ to travel great distances in a short amount of time. Delta’s ship was likely using it when they arrived here.” Luna nodded, fascinated by the technology. “What other books are on there?” asked Luna, remembering about her thoughts regarding human war. “Are there any on human wars?” Twilight pressed a button, and began navigating through a selection of books. “There are a few,” she replied. “But I think that Delta has blocked some of the functions on this thing… I can only access a few features, and even those are still limited to me.” Luna found this odd. What did Delta have to hide? She was about to respond when she heard a loud clang as Delta dropped another damaged piece into the pile. He then jumped down after it, and walked to the ponies. “Alright,” he said. “I’ve finished removing the larger pieces, but it’s beginning to get dark. We can be finished for today.” Delta turned to look at Doctor Gazer, who was examining his tablet near the edge of the clearing. “Doctor, I’ll be needed your magic to get the small pieces out tomorrow.” Doctor Gazer smiled and nodded, and walked to join the rest of the ponies. “Good work today,” Delta said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He then walked into his ship, and closed the hatch. The ponies all exchanged glances, and Luna flared her horn, teleporting them all back to Ponyville. Adam wished the ponies farewell, and walked into the peace and quiet that was his pelican. He had become quite accustomed to living in it over the past few days, and he regretted that it was so badly damaged. He was beginning to grow hungry, but before he ate, he figured he would record another log. SPARTAN LOG - MONDAY, MAY 26TH, 2556 LOCATION: UNKNOWN TIME OF LOG: 1648 HOURS RECORDING STARTED… This is Spartan-D014, recording my… fourth log. We just wrapped up the fourth day of repairs, and we are on schedule. The reactor should be finished shortly, then we can get to fixing anything else, which shouldn’t take long… My relationship with the ponies seems to be getting a bit better. As I mentioned in last night’s log I uh… shot and killed one of their guards with my sidearm… They’re a very forgiving race, they seem to put a lot of emphasis on apologizing and making up for one’s past mistakes. I’ve decided to thank them for their kindness by giving one of them access to the Wikipedia program when they arrive tomorrow. She’s been mentioning it on-and-off over the past few days, and I figure it couldn’t hurt too much. I’ll obviously block access to a few things, like Earth, any information on Spartans, and… and the Covenant. But she’s just curious, she likes to learn. She means no harm, and that is something I know. I’ll continue making a log entry each night after we wrap up repairs. I’ll also record my SOS at some point to upload it to the beacon once I get aboard Lightning. Alright, once again, Spartan D-014 signing off. RECORDING STOPPED. RECORDING ARCHIVED. SIGNING OFF…