Planet Hell: The Redemption of Harmony

by solocitizen

11. The Dog and his Reflection

“Please, help me!” A white unicorn pounded her hooves on the airlock and rested her head on the security camera, sobbing. Although the camera feed pixilated out the subtleties of her features, the bruises, dirt, and open wounds on her face and barrel still showed clear on Drizzle and Medley’s monitor. “I know there’s somepony in there! Please, you can’t leave me out here!”

She carried a saddlebag strapped to her back and was alone, from what they could see.

The two marines watched her, in the half-light of their security station, as she hammered her hooves on the hull. Neither knew what to do other than to call somepony higher up. But when they alerted the security chief, she told them to forward it to the bridge, and the bridge told them to pass it on to the major, and he wasn’t responding to their messages either. He was either sleeping with his marefriend or brooding, and not doing his job managing the ship, again.

“Should we try Lightning Fire?” Drizzle hit the mute button and silenced the unicorn’s pleading. “She’d know what to do.”

The security station was near the ship’s engine room, and without the audio from the airlock feed, the sharp hum of the reactor leaked into the air.

“No, she just went to bed for the first time since we got here.” Medley trotted away from the screen and pried the first aid kit off the wall. She held it in her mouth by the handle. “I think it’s pretty obvious what we got to do. We need to help her.”

“You can’t be seriously be thinking about letting her in!” Drizzle flung her amber wings open and spun around at Medley. “You read the latest report on the changelings, or whatever they are, right? They look like ponies. How do we know she isn’t one of them? Or what if it’s a trap set by the ape-creatures?”

“I don’t, but we’re not leaving her out there,” Medley said. “Maybe that’s what a shape-shifting monster would do, or a hairless-ape-alien, but we’re ponies. Equestria was built on love and friendship, or so they say. On top of that we’re also pegasi of the Imperial Marines, paragons of responsibility. We’re not going to stand here and watch her bawl. We’re above that.”

“Didn’t Equestria sink into the ocean, or something?” Drizzle closed her wings, plopped into the chair behind her, and crossed her hooves. “So maybe love and friendship isn’t the formula for success. I hate to remind you, but we’re not actually in the marines anymore either. That ‘we’re still Imperial soldiers’ thing is just rhetoric our Prince Thunder-Flank likes to throw around.”

“We don’t have time for this.” Medley rolled her eyes and tucked the first aid kit under her wing. “I outrank you, Private, so let’s get moving.”

Drizzle sighed, shook her head, and walked up to the door. She grabbed the rifle she kept near the entrance and slung the shoulder mount over her neck. Powered armor would have helped her feel a whole lot safer, but armor was designed primarily to enhance mobility as an offensive weapon, not as a defensive measure. If fighting actually broke out in and around the ship, a suit wouldn’t do much more than make her feel safer. She thought of suggesting the idea anyway, but that was just to delay going outside. Instead, she talked Medley into bringing along a pair of hoof-cuffs.

“For the record this is still a really bad idea,” she said. “Before we head out, just let me say that if we were really still part of the marines, I would’ve gotten promoted to corporal by now and I wouldn’t have to listen to you.”

“By the time you reached corporal, they would’ve made me a major.” Medley gave Drizzle’s rear end a shove and pushed her out the door. “And you’d still be taking orders from me.”

It was a short walk down to the airlock, and they didn’t run into any other marines keeping watch or making repairs. Their shipmates were either all resting or preparing for a battle with the monsters in the desert. Without the shouting and banter and the scent of sweat circulating in the air, only the hum of the reactor and the fading smell of their shipmates kept them company.

Not even the guard post by the airlock was abandoned. Medley called the bridge to let them know about their plan and requested them to standby with back up just in case. At a word, Drizzle and Medley could lockdown the ship and summon a whole company of marines to their position.

While Drizzle tested the tracking on her rifle, and then they opened the airlock.

Hot air and dust rushed in from the desert, kicking Medley and Drizzle’s manes about. They held their ground from the gust but squinted against the sun. Medley clung to the first aid kit under her wing, and Drizzle to the bit of her shoulder-mounted assault rifle. The setting sun didn’t extend over that side of the ship, and they were cast in shadow.

Before them stood the white unicorn. Her mane coat was stained with dirt and blood, her eyes darted back and forth between them, and her ears pivoted back in sudden apprehension.

She rushed towards the Medley and Drizzle exclaiming, “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” seemingly ready to kiss their hooves if they asked. But then Drizzle yanked back her firing bit and cocked her rifle. That stopped the unicorn in her tracks.

“Not so fast,” Drizzle said. “We know all about the creatures Sigil Tech brought here for research, and how they look like ponies and stuff. So prove that you’re not a bug.”

“You’re not going to let me in? They’ve been hunting us down one by one. Sometimes they take the shape of somepony you know, saying they’re a survivor so they can feed off your feelings for them and lead you into traps. Sometimes they just show up in force and kill those who resist, a-a-a-and use those who don’t before executing them. I’ve lost so many friends, and I had to watch my coltfriend die in my hooves. Please, you can’t send me back out there! You’ve no idea what I’ve been through!”

“We’re here to help,” Medley said. “You’re safe now, but first you got to prove you’re not one of them.”

“My name is Twinkle Star,” said the unicorn. “I worked in accounting, my employee idea is SF381. I was born on New Canterlot, and I’ve been here for five years. All my friends are d-dead. Please, you’ve got to believe me. I don’t know what else I can say to convince you!”

Medley glanced over to her companion, who kept both eyes aimed down the barrel of her gun. She had no idea of how to tell if the pony outside their airlock was an imposter or not, but she couldn’t bear to watch her suffer.

“It’s okay, I believe you.” Medley waved the unicorn closer. “You can come in.”

She bolted forward, but stopped again when Drizzle raised her hoof.

“Wait, hold it!” she said. “First, dump out the bag and put these on nice and tight.” She took the hoof-cuffs off the belt of her cuirass and tossed right in front of the unicorn. "I got my eyes on you so don't try anything funny."

The unicorn nodded and unfastened the straps on her saddlebag and let it slip off her back. At a nod from Drizzle, she opened the first compartment and a black cylinder no longer than a spoon tumbled onto the baked earth.

“Kick that over here and start opening up the rest of your bag,” Drizzle said. “Actually, hoof-cuffs first, then dump out the rest of your bag.”

The unicorn kicked the cylinder to the two marines, and cuffed all four of her hooves just as Drizzle had asked, but she held off opening up any more of her bag. She watched and waited, while Medley inched closer and scooped up the cylinder in her hoof.

“What is it?” Medley turned it over in her hoof.

“You don’t know what that is?” The unicorn let out a nervous laugh. “It’s nothing, really. Don’t worry about it.”

Medley held it out to Drizzle and she stepped closer to get a better look.

Once Drizzle’s eyes were on cylinder and her rifle was pointed at the ground, the unicorn struck.

A green aura surged across her unicorn’s horn lighting up the underbelly of the ship’s hull. The cuffs melted from her hooves. Medley gasped, dropped the cylinder, and tapped the emergency call button on her uniform. But before Drizzle even had the chance to react, the black cylinder flashed green and out popped a baton just over a foot in length.

It leaped out off the ground and smacked Drizzle across her head with such force that she fell bleeding from her mouth and nose.

Medley flexed her wings in shock and let the first aid kit tumble as she bolted for the airlock. It was already closing shut ahead of her. She galloped all of three feet before the baton swept across her hind legs and knocking her off her hooves.

“We’ve got them, let’s move!”

Medley heard hoof steps clattering into the airlock ahead of her. Burning adrenaline kicked her back onto her aching legs. She dared to look back and saw the white unicorn rushing towards her with three ponies identical to herself down to the birthmark on her cheek and missing stud on her cuirass. A duplicate of Drizzle dragged away her body.

Had she any more time to ponder the image and let the existential horror of what she was witnessing sink in, she would have screamed, but before she had the opportunity to do so, the white unicorn reared her head to the side and swung as if she gripped a bat in her teeth.

The baton matched her movements precisely as it caved in the side of Medley’s skull.

The last thing Medley saw before fading out was her own doppelganger dragging her away.

“Bridge to Corporal Medley,” a voice chirped from a speaker on her forehoof. “We saw your alert and we’re dispatching a team of marines to assist. Is everything alright down there?”

“This is Medley,” the doppelganger said in her own voice. “False alarm. I hit the alert by mistake. Lift the lockdown once the marines get here. Be advised that the survivor is in our custody. We’ll be waiting. Medley out.”

Thunder Gale dragged his hooves every step of the way to his quarters. He took a meandering path down and around the deck below it to buy him some more time, but without the crew clogging the arteries with their work and their shouting, he reached his door in mere minutes.

Nopony was around to see him, so he stood outside awhile longer with his hoof poised over the lock panel. It was quiet throughout the ship, so much so that he half-expected to hear Breeze Heart crying or screaming from the other side of the door, but he didn’t catch a single peep.

He’d been living in fear that Breeze Heart might find Hill Born’s original message, but he told himself that she wouldn’t and pushed any thoughts of discovery into the back of his mind. Some part of him had known that one day there’d be a reckoning, but he had ignored it like all the rest. As he stood outside his door, it surged forward and screamed: You knew this would happen. His stomach knotted.

Head hung low and ears drooping, he hit the open button on the lock panel and the door to his room parted.

Breeze Heart sat on the edge of their bed holding a cardboard box in her hooves. She was well lit by the fluorescent lamp overhead and every detail, from her quivering lips to the tears tracing rivulets down her pink coat, confronted him in vivid clarity.

The holorecorder Thunder Gale received on Marble, the original one he thought he hid so well, lay sideways on their dresser, projecting half of Hill Born’s face. The message repeated the words, “Your father… Your father… Your father…”

“You wanted to see me?” Thunder Gale shut the door behind him.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m leaving you.”

He took a deep breath before speaking again, but it didn’t help any.

“Breeze, I understand you’re upset, but do we have to do this now?” he asked. “Tomorrow, we’re going to go out there and put an end to this once and for all. If circumstances were different I’d gladly talk this out with you, but they’re not and I really can’t be thinking about this the evening before battle.”

Breeze Heart swallowed and turned her eyes on the box in her hooves instead of him. She shivered and wiped the tears from her cheeks.

“I suppose it is rather selfish of me, to be worrying you about something such as this right now,” she said. “But do any of the marines you’re asking to fight tomorrow know why we’re here? Lightning Fire? Cloud Twist? Do any of them know about what was really on Hill Born’s message?”

Thunder Gale didn’t know what to say, or what to do, so he just stood there with the air vent blowing over him. The door was right behind him; for a second, he considered using it.

“Say something.” Breeze Heart glanced at him and he looked away.

“No,” he said. “Nopony else knows. You’re the only one who knows.”

"They sacrificed the chance to ever see home again for you. They spent years scouring the stars so you could search for your father. Then, after you make them leave Marble—a world you promised them would be their home—just so they could come here and fight in your battle you couldn’t even tell them why? Cloud Twist will most likely die tomorrow unless we leave and you can't even tell them why we're not?”

A wave of dizziness washed over Thunder Gale like a rush of blood to the head. He sat down at the edge of the bed about a foot or two away from Breeze Heart, propping himself up on his front legs like a dog. The dizziness lingered as the minutes went by.

“Say something, please,” she said.

“What do you want me to say?” he asked.

“Something, anything, please, just say something.”

“They’re soldiers of the Imperial Marines, their duty is to defend the empire from its enemies, and tomorrow they’ll be doing exactly that.” Thunder Gale swallowed and squirmed in his seat; his hooves were shaking and he didn’t want her to see. “But we’re not just talking about the crew, are we?”

“No, we’re not.”

Thunder Gale glanced into her box, and saw the hairbrush she used every morning while he shaved—she had combed his mane with it once when he was too stressed about an upcoming mission to sleep, and she calmed him down enough to nod off. The socks she had purchased back on Marble were in there too, along with her toothbrush, shampoo, her hair bands, and the pillow from her side of the bed. Each item was so colorful under the fluorescent light: so naked and exposed.

“You want to know the truth?” he asked, but didn’t wait for a response. “I am a traitor. I’ve betrayed the trust that you and everypony else on this ship gave me. I’m terrible, but I care about you and I want us to continue, together, and build that cottage one day. As twisted as it sounds, I lied to you because I love you and don’t want to lose you.”

Breeze Heart set her box on the ground and pushed herself off the edge of the bed. Then, she put a hoof to his cheek and held up his downcast head long enough to guide his gaze to her face.

“I love you too,” she said. “I can’t bear the thought of losing you, but as much as I want to stay by your side it’s killing me to watch you put yourself through this hell we’ve found for ourselves. Maybe this is something you have to see to the end, but I can’t do it anymore. I’ve waited long enough, and need to go live my own life… even if it means that you’re not a part of it any more.”

He reached for her hoof, but she raised a wing between them.

“Please, try to understand.” Thunder Gale was breathing rapidly. “I lost everything during the bombing—my sister, my mother, and my father. He was such a compassionate and wise pony, and was all about harmony between the tribes, but then he changed and I knew it wasn’t him any more. The real him is still out there, I can feel it. And on this planet are the answers I need to find him again!”

“Look at where we are!” She stomped a hoof and pointed at the twilight desert beyond their window. “Those aren’t pirates out there! They’re some manner of monsters we’ve never seen before. Celestia only knows what those creatures are capable of, or just how many there are.” She closed her eyes, squeezed the tears from them, and let her wings and ears drop. “I fear for you every time you put on your armor, and twice in as many days I didn’t know if you were coming back to me at all. Maybe it will take losing me to get you to turn around, but if it means saving your life, then I have to be strong and walk out the door. I’ll stay in sickbay until we reach an inhabited planet then I will take my leave. Good bye, my love.”

Thunder Gale reached out to her, but before he could say any more, she picked up her box and trotted away.

He stood there with his wings out stretched and his hoof still hovering above the floor, still waiting for her. The air vent still pumped out air and slowly washed her scent from the room, but when he shifted on the bed he kicked up her smell from the sheets. He got back up again and broke down on the floor.

He stared up at the same ceiling the two of them had stared at countless of days and nights, and thought of all the little talks and intimate moments they shared beneath it.

Just then, he thought of the dog he saw on Marble. This is probably exactly how it felt, he thought to himself.

After he was through thinking, he got up, and headed to the bridge. He left his uniform behind. He doubted he’d ever put it on again.

A white unicorn held a brick of explosives in her hoof about as firm and pasty as clay, and patted it to the side of the hydrogen tank. No matter how much she scraped the bottom of her hoof on the grated floor, residue clung to her, leaving a yellow stain behind. She picked up her retractable baton and continued.

Six bricks identical to the one she just placed went on the side of the hydrogen tank, and the six more remaining in her saddlebag were to go on the underside of the steel sphere housing the dark matter reactor. If the Spitfire survived the blast somehow, at least Discord would never be able to put it in orbit.

The chief engineer, a pegasus stallion with a grizzled face and a sheen of grease befitting of constant work in the engine room, picked his bleeding head off the grated floor and caught sight of the unicorn trotting between the hydrogen tank and the reactor. He sniffed. Something smelled like playdough.

Then he spotted the explosives and his eyes shot open.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” he shouted. “That will blow us all to the moon and back!”

The white unicorn spun to him. Her horn burned green, and the baton lashed out at the engineer.

“I know.” She brought it down on his face as many times as it took for his body to go limp. “What I do, I do out of love.”

The speakers in engineering buzzed, and none other than the voice of the major himself came through the intercom.

“Attention all sections and all teams, this is Major Gale speaking,” he said. “After consulting the several members of the senior staff I have re-evaluated our current mission.”

The white unicorn paused, turned her ears up, and shook the blood off her baton.

"Make immediate preparations for departure.” He sighed on the other end. “We’re through here. We’re leaving.”

That wasn’t supposed to happen! The white unicorn stomped her back hoof on the floor grating and clenched her eyes shut. She needed more time to warn the members of her cell and tell them to leave before more marines rushed down to engineering to prepare the ship.

But she didn’t have the time. Changelings everywhere were depending on her. In her mind’s eye she visualized each of the explosive charges in precise detail, including the hoof prints her touch left in them and their dry texture. Then she reached out to them with her magic. Her horn burned green as she forged heat and flame in her mind.

“I love you all unconditionally.” She wrapped the fire in her head around the explosives and let the plastics in them boil. “Forgive me.”