//------------------------------// // 1 - Here come the Nerds & Red Skies Over Appleloosa // Story: Across the Sea of Time // by Meep the Changeling //------------------------------// Tessarah Munro's Personal Log: Stardate 93210.3 The unbelievable just happened. My friends and I have found ourselves stranded on a strange world. There is alien life here both benign and hostile. We are unarmed and have pretty much just an RV and the stuff we brought with us to a con. Naturally this is so unfathomably awesome that I feel the need to start keeping a proper log of everything. No that isn't sarcasm. I don't know how these are supposed to begin, so I guess I'll summarize who my friends and I are, how we got here, and just let it flow like I'm writing a novel from there. Maybe one day I'll somehow get to put this on the internet and someone will read it. Until that happens this will be a good way to organize my thoughts and have a record for us to check back on later in case we need something. I'll probably get the others to record a few entries too. My name's Tess. I'm a very introverted girl. Social events burn me out quicker than anyone can ever predict. The old saying 'Hell is other people' applies to me very well. Not in the way pop culture has twisted it, but in the original 'the observations and judgments of others upon my person is the worst form of torture I can be subjected to' the author meant by his little turn of phrase. Which is why it would shock most people who knew me to see me all smiles and sunshine after leaving Star Trek Las Vegas 2015. If I had been stuck in a Walmart for a weekend, I would be ready to die. A dinner party? Fire me into the sun please. A microsecond talking to my dad? Please orbital strike my position. A Trek convention? Sorry I can't hear you over discussing how we might improve the primary pattern buffers in the auxiliary transporter systems. Trekkies are one of the few types of people who I feel safe around. It's simple, they are humans, with human problems, but they are organized into a community who longs for a world free of all the bullshit ours is choked with. The shining future of Star Trek has no money, no war, no hunger, no disease. The show is a message, it says, 'Yeah life sucks ass now, but if we get our shit together it could be awesome. We have the power to become better than this.' That message is why the con has fans who have been fans for half a decade. Hell Trek cons are as close as I get to attending church. Instead of talking about how we are all dirty sinners it's talking about cool sci-fi stuff, and more often than not talking with real scientists about new ideas and inventions. The cellphone exists because a guy was inspired by Star Trek. Just saying. That would still be draining to me if it weren't for one other thing. Most Trekkies embrace the philosophies of the show as a whole. You don't see many people in the fandom who discriminate, and those that do get shunned. You are accepted, even if you are a girl like me. What is a girl like me? A walking talking contradiction of societal opinions that's what. I'm a six foot tall, slender, platinum blond, white girl with a love of revealing clothing and lovely g cups that I'm proud to say are the product of science. I have been described as a 'whore' by strangers and family members alike, that's technically true I guess. I'm not a booth babe. Yeah I'm ok looking, dress skimpily most of the time, and yes I have 'fake' tits, but I am also a nerd. How much of a nerd? I don't have implants, I have artificially induced growth of natural tissues thanks to participating in a clinical trial for the twenty first century's answer to silicone. I did it so I could say I'm the result of a mad science experiment to create a better woman. Downside is the only superpower I got was more chest fat. I would have preferred wings, or a big fluffy squirrel tail, or anything non-human but well, what can you do? I also don't act like some bimbo. I might as well be a robot when around most people but at home or with close friends I'm a fun loving, twitchy ball of nerdy nerves. The sort of person who made her best friend and girlfriend's uniforms for the con this year using the same materials as the original prop guys. The sort who spent her hard-earned cash to make sure her own uniform was screen accurate and every accessory functional. Kaily is a bigger nerd than I though. Sure, I loved the show and the ideas in it, but she knew the real life physics behind NASA's warp drive in progress. That's a whole other level. She is someone who would be helping build that shiny golden future for humanity, if she had gotten to finish college. Which is why I started dating her, well that and her cute bouncy rump. She's short, sexily curvy, has dark red hair, mocha colored skin, and an epic henna tattoo that reaches every single part of her. The only problem with her looks is she's human, she could use retractable claws, or scales, or some other cool xenobiology. Then again I am of the opinion that everyone could use something like that. The human shape is just... boring. Fortunately Kaily's personality is beautiful enough to make up for that flaw. She's cheerful, brilliant, kind, thoughtful, and neurotic enough for me to have a role she needs very much. I'm the one who pulls her out of the pit of despair, she's the one who gives me a reason to live. The other person who made my life worth living was Ed. We’re not romantically involved or anything, I don't do guys. Though he is cute. He looks a little like Robert Downey Jr did in the 90's, only Portuguese, a little shorter, and with bright green eyes. The sort of guy who looks like he should be harassing me to go out with him, or saying 'I'm too pretty to be a lesbian.' Ed's not like that. He's been my best friend for years, ever since we both were in Amtgard as preteens. He's not a Trekkie per-say, more of a fan of sci-fi in general. He's happy to put on a uniform and shoot the shit with people about Trek stuff, but he loves everything too much to dedicate himself to any one fandom. His RV was a good example of that. The outside was custom built to look like a Federation vehicle of some sort, complete with a Fleet logo on each side and the name USS Sagan RV-42 painted on the hood. The inside looked like the interior of the Normandy SR-2 from Mass Effect. But the actual internals, well... Ed shows his love for sci-fi by replicating sci-fi gizmos. The Sagan was filled with cool functional gizmos, hell the damn thing was electric and powered by solar cells on the roof but still able to go five hundred miles a day on or off road. Which is why it confused me when Ed announced, “I'm pulling into the Chevron.” “Huh? Why?” I asked, looking up from my laptop toward the driver's compartment. “I want something to eat,” He replied, turning the RV off the road. “But we have snacks in the fridge,” I pointed out. “Yep.” Ed pulled the RV into an out of the way spot in the parking lot and killed the engine. “You two want anything?” Kaily shook her head. “I'm good.” She winked at me, standing up as Ed unbuckled and stepped into the living area. The second Ed was looking she snapped into a salute, announcing, “Captain on deck!” Ed sighed, straightened his uniform's red and black jacket, gave her a glare of doom and shot back, “Don't make me space you Lieutenant.” He crossed to the RV's door and gave us a nod. “I won't be long. Sure you don't want anything?” I shook my head. “Nah, I'm good.” “Kay.” Ed ducked out, grabbing a large camping backpack as he left the RV. Maybe he wanted to do some grocery shopping before going back home. He was pretty lazy like that. “So... are you going to keep your hair like that?” Kaily asked, looking critically at the bun I had tied my hair into. “Unlike you, I respect the uniform,” I teased, clicking away at my text game, “I'll go back to the usual ponytail once were home.” “So you respect the uniform enough to put your hair in an up-do, but not enough to not play video games in it?” “I'm off duty. I'm also in a security uniform. We both know that means I just sit in a hole until something goes wrong then get my ass kicked,” I giggled. She nodded. “That's a fair point actually. Did you have a good time?” “Yep! How about you? Find any fellow eggheads?” I teased before growling, “Ugh... stupid merchant... I'm trying to find new biomes. Stop popping up every time I hit explore!” “I did actually!” Kaily grinned. “I found a guy who had some pretty interesting ideas on how to adapt that spider silk sub dermal armor so you can grow it in one piece instead of needing to make the lattice. Which means you could grow it in large enough pieces to perform enough grafts to make it a full skin replacement without bankrupting yourself.” “Sounds like you had fun. I should have made you a medical uniform instead of an engineering one.” “There really isn't much of a difference these days. Still prefer machines though, at least when they break it's easy to figure out why.” Kaily plopped down on the couch across from me with a sigh. “Well... back to the slog through uneducated dolts for us.” I sighed and looked up from my laptop, I had to nip her depression in the bud or she would be like this all week. “Yeah... At least we live close enough to drive out there every year though. Besides, local Fleet meetups are always fun and Jake said he had a new campaign figured out so we have a new game to look forewords to!” “We do?” Kaily asked, perking up for an instant before frowning, “Are you going to run another character like Mil'in?” I giggled and shook my head. “We both know there is no way in hell he'd let me do that again.” Playing that particular character was not easy for me to do. I had to be way too open with people about myself. I'm glad they think I was just in character for most of what I had Mil'in do, especially the random hugs from behind. “My point is we have some things to look forewords to... I know that working at a gas station sucks but we have fun too, right?” She sighed, nodding after a few seconds. “Yeah... Could use more excitement or fulfillment though.” “Totally,” I agreed in an equally down tone, “But you gotta make do. People bitch at you forever if you try and check out early. I'm sure we will get the chance to make something of ourselves eventually, hon.” She nodded. “Yeah maybe. Who knows, maybe I'll get a job offer from a start up somewhere and we can get out of here.” “It would be nice to go somewhere else,” I commented before turning my attention back to attempting to hit 'explore' enough times to unlock the desert biome, “It would also be nice if my browser cleaner didn't wipe my saves...” Ad’ika's Personal Log: 12th of Harvestide '09 EoH What? Why do I have to speak out loud? Oh cool! Everything I say is appear- Heh, sorry! I'll just get started then. My name is Ad'ika. I haven't earned a second name yet, but at least I have something to be called aside from 7142.85. I'm a Scout for the Emerald Hive, a group of changelings living in the bunker beneath Bozeman Hill in Equestria's Badlands. Being a Scout is more than just my job, it's my caste. The biological sort of caste, not like a social caste. I'm smaller, quicker, have dragonfly-like instead of wasp-like wings, and am way better at shapeshifting than others of my kind. But scouting is also my job. Mostly because my natural talents make me really good at it. We Emeralds have done our best to push past the social structure our biology pushes us into but that's actually pretty damn hard. After all while every changeling can flawlessly impersonate a pony, I can make up my own individual pony forms to use. You can't figure out somepony is an impostor if they aren't an importer! There's more than just my shapechanging ability, if that's all that made a Scout unique a Worker could do my job with enough training. What no worker can ever do is connect to our hive's link from anywhere on the planet, something vital for me to do my assigned job. It's a job that every changeling in the Hive needs done, I am honored to help but I also would like time to do the things I am interested in. But the hive comes first. Captain Skriit wants me to infiltrate Appleloosa, so I live in Appleloosa. You might be wondering what job would require an adept shapeshifter who can remotely send information via telepathy back to base and involves infiltration. You probably think I'm a special agent or covert operative for a military or law enforcement agency, or maybe a terrorist. I'm actually more along the lines of a farmhand. Changelings don't eat what most species do. We need water like everything else, and we can eat a little bit of normal foods, but we actually eat emotions. Specifically positive emotions, usually love as it has the most energy and thus the highest nutritional content. It's pretty hard to be a species of emotavores, we can't exactly plant a row of squee so no agriculture for us. Instead, we have three options: Livestock; hunting; and assimilation. The live stock option involves kidnapping sentient creatures and keeping them in a hive as a food supply. It's kinda flawed because that makes most things mad, so they don't produce any positive emotions, so we don't get any food. Sure there are exceptions, we could take young and raise them. My hive hates doing that though, so we only take abandoned young. Hunting works pretty well. Most of my job involves informing the Hive to send harvesters when emotions are running highest. There is some risk to an individual we extract energy from, but if you're careful you can get all the energy you can without an individual noticing. What? You thought we killed creatures we feed on? That would be like cutting down an apple tree to get apples. Any changeling who has been taught to hunt right leaves enough energy for the subject to remain in a positive mood, and is careful enough to give them a slight headache at the worst. Sometimes I get to pull off assimilation. Our species is genetically compatible with ponies as well as a select few other species, meaning we can breed with them. Our mages found a way to make an adult into the same sort of hybrid a half-changeling child is. We don't do it for just anyone, the risk is too high. But if we ever find an individual who feels cast out of society, who needs company, a family, we make them a deal. We can feed on them, and they get our shape changing powers. Which is why the Captain had me stationed in Appleloosa. The tiny pony frontier town was a few weeks journey away from our hive and a place where many outcast ponies wound up. Every few months a good candidate for assimilation would show up and I would see about getting them interested in our offer. Also, the local ponies loved their festivals so I could keep the Hive apprised of when to gather food from the town. I've been living here for a few years now, four of the seven years my orders have me posted here for. I stuck around town for a few weeks in a half dozen different shapes to find a niche I could fit into. My job is easiest when ponies are friendly to me, sadly that means I can't just walk in as my normal buggy self. Changelings have a rightfully earned bad reputation as dangerous. We Emeralds are different, we are no longer conquerors, we have changed, but other hives haven't, and ponies are easily spooked. So everypony in town knew me as Star Burst, a dark gray furred pegasus mare with a dark blue mane and tail featuring a single gold highlight. I often wore my mane in a ponytail and always had on a simple black homburg with a white band. A hat is sort of required by local pony culture. When I was first infiltrating Appaloosa I noticed they always needed more construction done, so I whipped up a hammer and saw cutiemark and have been working as a carpenter ever since. I have to admit that I do cheat at my 'job'. Pony culture enjoys tradition, they have some higher technology but usually do things the old fashioned way. Changelings are usually rather primitive. Most hives believe we are superior life forms and that nature is good enough. We Emeralds are different, we suck. Physically I mean, smaller, weaker, we’re wimps. We turned to technology to survive, and after an incredible stroke of luck have some very nice pieces of technology at our disposal. So whenever I could get away with it, instead of taking a saw in hoof and cutting a board, I'll break out the old omni-tool, whip up a hardlight mono filament blade and just cut the board to shape. I feel a little bad about that though. I've started to drive other carpenters out of business but I can't just stop using my tech because now I have a reputation for being incredibly good. Using pony tools I would be pretty bad. To be fair, we didn't invent most of our technology. We found it, fixed it up, and can reproduce it, but it's not ours. That's why Bozeman Hill's so important to my hive, our survival depends on the banged up wreck we found under it and the tech therein we have yet to understand. Which is why Applelooza is so important for our Hive, it's close to home, our best food supply. The only problem was we couldn't harvest enough from it, there's more than enough ponies living there to feed our hive but the small population means we can't send very many harvesters at once without someone noticing what's happening. So my sisters are always a little hungry, running on the minimum most of the time. I'm pretty lucky, enough ponies are grateful for my work that I get all the food I need. Well, I get enough love. I have to feed my pony body too, that's the price of staying shapeshifted for long periods. You need to feed the real you and your chosen form. Since the construction industry in town was booming I had to set my prices pretty low. It feels very weird to be full and also hungry at the same time. My badge chirped, shaking me out of my thoughts. I quickly took off my hat and tapped the badge hidden inside, indicating I was free to speak over the hivelink. I telepathically sent, feeling my link connect to the Hive Mind and rout through to... Captain Skriit? Everyling's 'voice' comes through a link perfectly clear, but Skriit’s voice always sounded extra crisp, authoritative, and iron clad. Odd traits for a male's voice to have. It made him sound extra “commandy”. Realizing I sent that through the link I eeped out loud. I turned around, tugged open the window and slipped outside, wings snapping open and flapping as I emerged out the second story of my workshop and landed on the roof. the Captain ordered. I frowned in concern at the order. I sighed then closed my eyes, and focused on my true form. Some 'lings say shape changing feels weird, like when you're freshly molted and someling else rubs your back. I've never felt that way. It's warm, relaxing, and just a little fun. It's like a bucket of warm honey flows across you whisking your old shape away and leaving behind something new. The rows of wooden buildings and shifting desert sands melted away as my eyes returned to normal. Everything quickly came back into view, the hundreds of vibrant colors gone, everything shades of purple, dark blue, or black to my eyes. I scanned the horizon, the shifting vortex of sand was much easier to spot now. Crackling energy and flashes of light bloomed within the cloud of sand, I would never have seen them as a pegasus but the UV all of that electricity was putting off glowed like a miniature sun to changeling eyes. There was no reply as I closed my eyes to prevent the headache inducing flash which came with changing what part of the EM spectrum I was seeing. When I opened my eyes again everything was pitch black with a few scattered tiny motes of white light shimmering. The tiny dots were ponies, their passive magic fields the only thing I could see. Aside from the terrifying arcane maelstrom in the distance! I concentrated for a moment, the lenses of my eyes warped, magnifying the organized chaos of white bolts of energy in my vision, hidden details instantly revealing themselves. There was silence for a split second then I saw bright flash of white, the vortex spun down, slowly decaying into nothing. A shrill shriek pierced my ears. “Changeling!” “Call the guard!” somepony in the street screamed. I cursed. Snapping my wings open and switching to the visible spectrum. Only an idiot flies while looking at spell energy. Captain Skritt ordered with a slight touch of concern for me in his voice. Flashes of white clouded my vision as my eyes adjusted for normal light. I winced, waiting until I could see properly was costing me precious moments. The first thing I saw clearly was a spear thud into the roof a hair's breadth from my left arm. I chirped in alarm, jumped up, snapping my wings open to take of. A blaze of golden light streaked over my left shoulder. I dropped and rolled, the metallic scent of spellbolts filling the air as more golden rays sliced through the air above me. I couldn't take off, and in seconds pegasus guards would be on the roof. I called upon my own magic, focused my energy, sweeping a low powered beam of magic around me. With a crack of broken wood I fell through the roof, landing on the circle I had cut out and scrabbling to my hooves in an instant. My saddlebags and omnitool lay on my workbench, I couldn't leave them behind. Prime Directive, keep tech out of pony hooves and all that. A quick pulse of telekinesis and my bags were loaded and sitting on my back. someling's voice answered. The door to my room exploded inwards as two earth pony guards rushed in. Applelooza's guards weren't the polished pretty boys of Canterlot. Their armor was well worn, covered their vital areas, and they knew how to use their spears to do more than bar a door. “There it is, kill it!” one of the guards shouted. “It? I'm female!” I shouted in mock anger before firing a spellbolt over their heads. In the instant the bolt bought me, I jumped backwards landing on the sill of the already open window. “If it's any consolation I had a hard time with pony genders myself!” I tipped backwards falling out of the window. A quick buzz from my wings and I landed safely on the ground. The unicorn would be keeping an eye on the sky still. Within seconds two pegasi landed in front of me, the sound of hooves on dirt from behind indicated I was surrounded. The guard to my left took a step forward, green eyes narrowed. “Any last words bug?” he asked with a menacing grin on his lips. “Yeah, pew!” I winked and threw a single low powered stunbolt. The bolt streaked towards the guard, his partner kicked him out of the way. Hooves scraped dirt as the pony behind me jumped to tackle me. I dropped, belly to the sand, and flapped my wings backwards hard as I could. A pink pegasus guard soared over me as I zipped backwards under her. She slammed into her companions, I scrambled to my hooves, jumped, twisted, landed on the wall, gripped the boards and ran across it passing over the pile of tangled guards with a “'scuse me, pardon me, coming through!” In my experience angry ponies are less tactical ponies. With thirty Tatzlwurm attack hardened guards in town I would every edge I could get. I jumped off the wall, twisted, and hit the ground running. I had to get out of the back roads of town. A year ago this would have been simple, but the gold rush had octupled the number of buildings in town. I would have to navigate the haphazard back alleys by myself. I turned right and took off, flying a few feet above the ground to prevent that unicorn from simply shooting me out of the sky. Hooves thundered behind me. I rolled, twisting my wings to keep moving forward as I spun around to look behind me. The three pegasi had gotten untangled quickly, and their unicorn friend had joined them. The two earth ponies were quickly bringing up the rear, one of them suddenly stopped and leveled a crossbow. The bolt flew towards me with a sharp crack. I felt a jolt of pain as the bolt bounced off my exoskeleton. Sure, you need armor piercing tips to get through changeling's armor, but it still feels like a really hard punch. I rolled with the hit, wings brushing against a wall as I twisted in the air nearly knocking me out of the air. A second bolt buried itself in the wall next to my head. I pushed with all my might, wings buzzing like a saw as I climbed above the rooftops. Focusing as hard as I could on not hitting anypony I threw a flurry of spellbolts towards the charging guards. The unicorn threw up a shield spell, protecting herself and the earth ponies behind her. The pegasi took to the air, the pink one taking a bolt to the wing, slamming to the ground as my spell punched a hole through her feathers. “Ah! Luna's mane!” she screamed. I winced. I didn't think I had thrown lethal spells. “I'll squash it for you, Shield!” a bright blue pegasus shouted, racing towards me, hooves outstretched, face expressing more hate than I was comfortable with. Any given pegasus is way faster than a changeling. I couldn't outrun him. He knew this, I could see the smug expression on his face as he closed the distance. I let him get within a body length of me then jinked left. “Olé!” I cried as the pegasus shot past me like a rocket. Nothing with bird wings out-maneuvers a bug. The pegasus quickly pulled an Immelman turn, looping back to take a second shot. He put on an extra burst of speed, starting to trail red white and blue as he came in. His buddies shot up towards me as he came down. I counted the seconds till the pegasi would be ontop of me. “Three... two... one... and snap roll!” I rolled to the left in a corkscrew pattern, intentionally stalling and losing a good chunk of my speed. The two pegasi behind me overshot forcing their friend to pull up and move around them. I couldn't help but stick my tongue out at him as he shot by. As I turned and flattened out my flight path to try and make a break for the desert I noticed the blue pegasus grab a small cloud, then flip into a perfectly executed pitch back loop, and fire a lightning bolt. The bolt sizzled through the air, passing close enough to blind me for a second. “Ah! Clever dick!” I cursed, as I barely blinked my vision clear in time for a second bolt to go crackling past me. The second of blindness sent me off course, forcing me to swerve around a chimney. I rolled onto my right side, twisting the first part of sort of sideways Cuban eight loop. The second I was facing back the way I came I fired off a barrage of small bolts, the green magic sizzling through the air. Blue pain in my ass whipped his cloud up like a shield, my spells diffusing as they hit the lightning charged cloud. With a silent curse I whipped back around, finishing the loop and returning to my original flight path. Wishing I had taken the advanced air combat classes instead of just basic training, I poured on all the speed I could. If I got far enough from Applelooza the guards should break off. Standard anti-changeling policies said not to chase us too far, they figured we would lead them into groups of waiting allies. Can't call it racist when it's true. The next ten minutes were a blur of near misses, more than a few painful hits, a few kilohugs of magic burnt throwing spells over my shoulder, and more obscenities than I knew ponies had invented. We quickly entered the middle of the desert, nothing but sand, rock, and desert scrub as far as the eye could see. The sweltering heat was playing hell with my wings. Ling's and hot days do not make for good flying partners, my wings were throbbing. I would have to do my best to shake them on hoof. I flared my wings and twisted in the air to put my belly forewords, killing my speed instantly. Ignoring the pain in my shoulders I dropped just in time for the two pegasi to shoot past me, a quick buzz of my wing setting me safely on the ground on a fairly steep hillside. Those guards must have been pretty tired themselves, they banked, turned and landed atop the hill. The green one panting, “Right... pincer move. I got left, you take right.” “Ok,” her partner agreed, “Charge!” The two began to gallop down the hill towards me, I spun on my hooves to sprint down the hill only for my jaw to drop in shock. Standing twenty feet away was a bipedal, ape-like creature. It stood almost two heads taller than a pony, had long blond hair only on its head, and was dressed from head to toe in a black and red uniform. A uniform I recognized. A uniform any Emerald 'ling would recognize instantly. My eyes widened in shock, my jaw dropped, wings opening in a mixture of surprise, joy, and glee. Doing my best to remember to speak in English I shouted, “Help! They are going to kill me for racial reasons!” As impossible as a Starfleet security officer standing there was, I remembered she would be bound by the Prime Directive and added, “Starfleet! Federation! Earth! Humans! The Prime Directive is suspended if we know about you guys right?” The human woman looked at me with impossible amounts of shock and surprise and exclaimed, “What the actual fuck?”