CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
THE GARDEN OF GALLOPFREY
The Mare In My Head stared at her screen, consulted her readouts with a frown... and started doing a diagnostic of her systems! I calmly sent her the data again and she rejected it, the little cynic! After the third time I just gave up and told her to cope with it while I took in the details.
The sun that dazzled me was a brighter orange than the comparatively dim disk of Nova Celestia back Home. It was larger, too. About a quarter again as big, call it a K-5 bordering on an M-class star. Cooler, older than Earth's sun. A star past its prime and whiling its way toward old age smiling benignly in a pale, sky and taking no note of the sparse, wispy streaks of cloud that barely moved.
A quarter of the sky away there rode a half-phase disk of copper and ivory, most of the colors washed away by the sunlight. I assumed it was a natural satellite, about the size of Earth's Moon but with no brooding equine face upon it. There were some features visible, some of them looking suspiciously angular and geometric. Habitats? Mining Facilities? There was simply no way for me to tell and I never got round to asking the Doctor about it.
My gaze dropped to the foreground attracted by the blaze of color. Red, it was all the shades of red. Not the sere, parched red of Mares one orbit out of Earth back in the Solar System nor even the stark ocher and cinnabar I'd glimpsed in holos of Vulcan. There was precious little bare ground visible in this place. Nearly every scrap of it was covered by plants... and their leaves were red .
The ground was covered with grass or a close analog to it, trimmed to a uniform height and as dense and straight as a military manecut on either side of a meandering pale brown dirt path lined with (Equestrin) fist-sized rocks. Judging from what I could see they were a mix of igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary types strewn more-or-less neatly on either side of a one pony wide track that curved out of sight behind a shrub with narrow, scarlet leaves with serrated edges.
I noticed that the plants were larger the farther away from the path they lay. Bushes, shrubs, isolated beds of brilliant white, yellow, green, or blue flowers in beds of red-brown mulch lay near at hoof and gave way to stands of something like decorative grasses taller than me. Beyond them lay honest-to-Luna trees with black-to-brown trunks whose wide-spread branches flourished hundreds of thousands of carmine, scarlet, and just plain red leaves of all shapes and textures and each and every one of them gleamed with silver on their undersides. … I haven't been dazzled by plant life like this since Earth!
The air was noticeably drier than in the forest surrounding Sunny's place back in Elphinstone. Hardly desert-like but I noticed the difference. The breeze began to blow past us into the corridor.
“Just give that a tug, won't you? It'll only get harder to close the longer it stays open.” The Doctor said rather absently, nodding toward the gate and not taking his gaze away from the horizon behind the trees and the vault of the sky. When he noticed me looking at him he came back to himself and gave me a wink. “Higher air pressure on this side, don't you know. Besides, it wouldn't do to let too much of the damp in!”
Wordlessly, I reached out and grabbed the latch, dragged the gate shut and slid the hasp home. When I glanced back at him he had returned to his reverie. It would have been polite to leave him to it for a little while... but I was curious!
“You have a working biosphere in here? Is it part of the life-support system?”
“Hmm...?” The Doctor came back from wherever he was. “Oh, yes and no. In that order.” He gave me a sly look. “Care to guess what this place is?”
I looked around more intently, comparing the dryness of the air and trying to get a feel for the gravity. I took a step and raised one arm half-way and let it fall back to my side. It didn't jibe with what I knew of Vulcan. The plants were beyond me entirely. I'd never seen anything like them. Knowing what I did of the TARDIS I hazarded a guess...
“The planet Mares about a billion years ago...? But the gravity isn't right. But why would you have a simulated Maretian environment?” I frowned, concentrating. “I'm thinking even the TARDIS would be stressed if you made yourself a model of every habitable world you know of. Therefore this has to be someplace that has some special meaning for you. I don't care how advanced your Science is this has to take a lot of engineering to pull off on a whim...” The most probable answer flashed into my mind at that very instance. “This is Gallopfrey, isn't it?”
“Spot on! Good show! And they say Equestrins are dense!” He beamed at me just before he began to trot down the path. “Mares? Goodness, no! The Ice Warriors would have been all over us like ugly on a Dalek!” He said over his shoulder. He halted abruptly, his hooves slipping just a little bit in the dirt. “Oh, that's right. 'Mares' never had Ice Warriors. Slip of the old mental tongue! Mares and Mars sound so much alike. One little letter and a whole Universe apart! Oh, well, no harm done!” He shrugged and began off down the path again. I was caught up to him in two steps.
“Hold on one crumbling minute! Who says Equestrins are dense?” I demanded as we rounded a curve.
“I didn't say I said it!” The Doctor grinned his fey grin and kept on grinning while he waited for me to get the joke I had no clue about.
“It's in the nature of a pun, don't you know?” He prompted me. “'Who' says...? Ha ha ha.” His grin held on desperately. “You see I've come to be known by some as 'Doctor...' oh, never mind!” He made an irritated noise and kept his gaze strictly forward.
“Back to the question at hoof, Doc!” I said patiently, choosing my next words carefully. “Which group of people call Equestrins...”
“Tellarites!” He said curtly. “And not a few Terrans, I might add! ' Dense' and 'unimaginative' are the two kindliest terms that leap to mind, though there are a host of others.”
“Is that so?” I restrained an urge to strip a whippy-looking branch off the limb I had to duck under and lay it right across his cutie-mark! “We're also crabby and irritable especially when having a long and emotionally-exhausting day like this. Did I mention that we're prone to stuffing a Pony's face up his own back end when we get ticked off? Look, I'm sorry I didn't get whatever you you're referring to but I think I'm doing a rather admirable job of coping with all the weirdness...”
“You are!” The Doctor cut me off and continued more softly. “You really are. Far better than most of the relative few who've been allowed in the TARDIS. Miss Doo handled it especially well, but she's rather a special case, isn't she? Don't mind me, my dear. Mad Pony With A Blue Box and all that!” He gave me an apologetic look that managed to speak volumes. “Seeing Gallopfrey whole and intact stirs... a variety of emotions within me.”
I regarded him for a few moments. We don't press on Equestris. A Pony will tell his story or not, it's all up to them. I had to wonder, though. The Doctor killed this place, his home... Well he was entitled to his privacy.
“Fair enough, Doc.” I nodded and resumed sightseeing. It was a few moments before I ventured to speak again. “Nice enough place, though. Beats the Hell out of Mares at any rate. Don't tell Evee I said that!”
The Doctor smiled . “I am the very epitome of discretion, my Dear. Well, discretion and eccentricity that is! Mostly eccentricity, actually. It's my most endearing trait, well that and my daring fashion sense!” He paused and reared up just enough to adjust his pert red bow-tie. “In any event, while I'd be the first to admit that Mares isn't a patch on old Gallopfrey, you have to give the Maretians credit! They did a simply marvelous job of taming a hostile world. A real, first-rate survival story!”
“Feh!” I snorted. “All they had to do was inflate those Tinkertoy domes and turn the heat up!” I started ticking off points on my fingers. “ All that ice underground and at the Poles, practically no tectonic activity, lower gravity, and they were only five light-minutes from Earth! They would have had to try not to survive! We would have killed to have it that easy on Equestris!”
“Be fair!” The Doctor admonished. “Remember the conditions of the day! The Maretians had to start from scratch. No ship full of colonization hardware for them! The domes, and practically everything they needed had to be built from the materials on hoof. They were hardly counting on the breakdown of civilization during and after The Eugenics Wars! They were caught out quite flat hoofed and effectively isolated. They may have well been in another galaxy for all Earth could do for them, poor fellows!”
“Lemme tell you about that 'ship full of colonization hardware', pal!” I retorted. “About half the ship was Time Warp Drive! The Rose was so old by the time it found Equestris that it was falling apart! It was their third planetfall and everything was in short supply. It was Do Or Die time when they made orbit. If we weren't Augments... oh, ha-ha!” I ended sarcastically.
For the Timelord was snickering as he trotted. “Touchy, touchy! I had no idea there was such jealousy between Equestris and Mares!”
“We're not jealous. Equestris is just under-rated by Earth is all. Everypony thinks that just because we're Augments it was a picnic!” I gave the little twerp a playful shove that would have made him scramble to keep his balance if he were getting around on two legs like everypony else. As it was he had to resort to some adroit hoofwork to keep his pace up. I had to admire him for his reflexes. I'm not sure I could have pulled it off!
“Speaking of picnics,” I was in the process of reaching out to steady the agile so-and-so. When he recovered so effortlessly I changed course and brushed a stray lock of mane out of my eyes in what I hoped was a casual and natural gesture. “Why are we having one on what amounts to Gallopfrey instead of Earth?”
“Ah, well, Miss Doo sometimes gets muddled when it comes to directions. She's quite sensitive about it. An embarrassing experience from when she was younger about a job she had to do at what they used to call 'Winter Wrap-Up'. In any event she ended up here instead of Equestria. It would make her feel self-conscious if I asked her to pack everything back up again and move. In any event, Gallopfrey isn't such a bad place to have a picnic, isn't it? Very calm and peaceful once you get away from the cities. Besides, you're xenophilic enough that I daresay you'll rather enjoy it. Spirit of adventure and all that! Tyllae is enjoying herself immensely and Sunny is happy to be wherever you happen to be, bless her heart. All in all it's a win-win situation, isn't it?”
I couldn't help laughing. “And we have an expert guide to the place to boot!”
“You have no idea, my Dear! I've wandered all through here when I was a lad, er, colt. I was born on the other side of that hill as a matter of fact.” He shot me a warning look. “No, we won't be going visiting. Our destination is right through these bushes. Allonz-y!” With no further warning he hopped to the right, straight through a stand of bushes with dense clusters of narrow oval leaves, his coat tails flapping for just an instant as he went out of sight!
I barely had time to stop when he burst back, a look of panic in his eyes!
“Um, run!” He said quickly.
“What the Hell, Doc...?” My ears perked up through my mane as an ominous low buzzing became apparent. Small things, insects with dark bodies and silver wings, began to circle and dart around us. More arrived every second.
“Basically... run!”
And he was off at Time Warp Speed! He sped off to the left of the path, dodging trees and plowing through the undergrowth! He skidded to a stop maybe thirty feet away and whirled to face me.
Live and let live is my motto, at least when it comes to wildlife. In any event, the bugs didn't seem that interested in me. Maybe my Equestrin physiology confused them. Maybe I just didn't smell like a threat. Maybe the color of my uniform was soothing, yellow wasn't a color that seemed to occur naturally on Gallopfrey. Although I had a pretty dense swarm going around me they seemed to be content to just circle, thought a daring few made passes now and again, making as if to land but aborting at the last instant.
“Stay calm, Starry...!” The Doctor whispered urgently. Was he afraid the bugs would hear him?
I raised a hoof slowly in his direction.
“It's ok, Doc!” I said calmly. “They don't seem to know what to make of me. I'm going to walk slowly away down the path. They should break off after I go away far enough... whoops!” I twitched my head when one of them made to land on the end of my nose.
The Doctor hid himself behind a tree! “Do be careful! The Kel are analogous to Terrestrial Bees. They pollinate plants and aren't normally aggressive unless somepony, ah, disturbs their hive. ...Purely by accident, of course!”
I rolled an eye at him. “Good going, Genius!”
He cautiously emerged from hiding.
“Anypony can make a mistake, my Dear!” He said huffily. “ It isn't as if I didn't have sex with Discord! In any event I never really damaged the nest... I just sort of bumped it with my head as I came through. No harm done, really, but they don't know that. They do seem to be rather taken by you, don't they? Lucky me!” He looked thoughtful. “Must be the color of your uniform. To them you're a gigantic, exotic blossom. Oh, dear! Are you wearing perfume?”
The buzzing of the swarm had become less intense. I took that as a hopeful sign. The trade-off for their lessening of aggression, though, was an increase in their curiosity. More and more of them were landing on my arms, milling around. I peered closely at them. Six-legged dark bodies with a lateral silver stripe down each side, almost exactly the same color as their wings. Or the undersides of the leaves of Gallopfrey. I wondered if they roosted there for camouflage. I was snapped out of my reverie by the sensation of feeling them on my back and I was beginning to collect patches of them on my belly and breasts. I invoked my Equestrin biocontrol to keep from breaking out in a cold sweat and kept my arms extended away from me.
“Equestrin perfume.” I informed him in a steady voice. “Extract of native moss and synthetic wood esters. Sunny says it reminds her of tree sap and sawdust. ...And if you mention Topaz Lode again I'll reach through these bushes and brain you with the damn nest!”
The Doctor nodded and grinned. “Touche! Well, it could be worse. In the Equestrian garden we might have run afoul of a beaver dam!”
“I'm glad you're amused.” I said coldly. “Let me come over and shake your hoof to congratulate you on your sense of humor... ah, damnit!” I reached up to comb a few out that had crept into my mane and almost flew into my ear. They buzzed a little louder in annoyance before finding one of the increasingly fewer bare spots on my shirt to congregate.
“Steady on!” The Doctor warned. “If you hurt one the rest are liable to attack. Pheromones, you know!”
“I'm aware of the phenomena.” I growled. “Science Officer, remember? Now how far away from the hive do I have to go before they head back? One hundred feet? Two hundred...?”
“Ah!” The Timelord rubbed a hoof under his chin. “That may not work in this situation. Reason it out.” He said as I threw him a cold glare.
“You're a flower to them. Like the Bees of Earth, the Kel have been known to fly miles to a source of pollen. Of course you're not packing any pollen on you but insects are creatures of instinct and persistence. They're not about to give you up any time soon. Not, at least, until they've thoroughly investigated you.” He coughed apologetically. “We could be talking hours. Several of them. Gallopfreyan ones, if that's any consolation. Only seventy-seven percent of a Terrestrial one but about one hundred twenty percent of an Equestrin.” He smiled feebly in an attempt to cheer me up.
I would have bored holes in the little twerp with my eyes but I was distracted by a Kel landing on the end of my nose. I everted my lower lip and blew it off. It took it in stride and spiraled back to join his pals on my stomach.
“Swell.” I said with as much enthusiasm as a Vulcan at a Pep Rally. Then a thought suddenly occurred to me.
“Wait! If they're like bees they'll go dormant after dark. How long until sund...”
“It's mid-morning.” The Doctor pointed out. “And Summer, to boot! All you have to do is look at the Sun, you know.”
“How the Hell do I know what direction the sun rises on Luna-damned Gallopfrey?” I said hotly.
“It's a fact that an overwhelming proportion of worlds rotate clockwise on their axis as well as around their sun. ...And I'll thank you to mind your language when talking about my home world.” He gave me a quick, severe look before continuing. “There's only one thing for it, I'm afraid.”
I quirked an eyebrow at him... slowly.
“You'll have to take off your uniform shirt, drape it over a bush, and walk away slowly.” He said patiently.
“Oh for the love of...!” I bit off any further comment and counted to five hundred and twelve in base eight before continuing. “Look! Why not just light a fire and smoke the little bastards off?”
“Gallopfrey is a drier world than Terra, my dear Starry-Eyes. I'm not willing to chance a forest fire in order to preserve your over-weening sense of Equestrin modesty. Really! You people are a bad as the Victorians when it comes to...”
“All right! All right!” I growled, easing my hands around to tug my shirt up to give myself some slack, grumbling. “...And I'll thank you not to compare my people to an elitist bunch of uptight prudes!”
“Said the pot to the kettle! Just think of it as taking a stroll at Brighton Beach! A bra isn't so different from a bikini when push up come to shove, eh?” I wanted to wipe the smirk off his face with a shirt full of angry Kels...
“You might as well know, I don't wear bras. So Not... One ...Damn ...Word, got it?” I began easing my shirt off, pulling it up over my stomach and willing myself not to flinch when the little pests landed on me briefly before flying off in pursuit of my uniform.
He shrugged. “So you're taking a walk along the Riviera! There's no reason to be embarrassed. Your physiology is simple a consequence of being a mammal. Your, ah, distinguishing attributes are the salient reasons the species is called 'Mammalia', after all. I'm older than your Science of Electricity after all. Besides, I'm an alien! Your anatomy is a curiosity and not a cause for prurient interest. ...Oh, my word! That uniform does cover a lot, doesn't it? How do you manage not to fall flat on your face?”
“Again,” I ground out between clenched teeth as I eased the garment up over my head. “Not. One. Damn. Word!”
It was perhaps the slowest and most inelegant strip-tease on record. The bugs buzzing around my head and settling on my newly-bared bits were the only reason I didn't just shuck the damn thing off and chuck it into the brush. That and my erstwhile audience, that is! I had to pause the process in order to tug my sleeves off since I didn't want to risk having a bunch of the little things getting tangled up in them. As I mentioned, they would fly off and settle on me while I moved the garment. One particularly over-familiar little so-and-so managed to crawl into my cleavage. As Sunny pointed out long ago, my flesh is denser and harder than the Terrestrial norm. No give to it. He got squeezed between them, tighter than he cared for! I heard him buzz right before I felt a hot sting on the inside of my right breast. I threw my shirt to the ground and swatted him by instinct. With my reflexes it was no great challenge to get one bug!
Biocontrol or no biocontrol I broke into a sweat as the swarm around me buzzed in anger.
“... Oooh, crap.”
The Doctors' ears drooped. “I told you to be careful! Run! This way, to the water, hurry!”
He was off like a shot and it took me maybe a whole millisecond to lay in a pursuit course!
On an athletic track or even a few hundred yards of flat ground I would have been fine. Terrestrial insects can barely make twenty to twenty-five miles an hour in a calm breeze and, with my physique, I can make forty in a sprint! (As an Augment, I was automatically disqualified for track and field games back in Basic!) Even your run-of-the-mill Pony on the street would have had a fair chance to outrun this irate insect mob. Equines, after all, are born runners!
In an alien forest with dense undergrowth though, I just couldn't get up any real speed... not that I didn't try! I caught up with the fleeing Timelord in just a few seconds and immediately passed him up, dodging trees and collecting twigs, leaves and welts from every bush I plowed through! My insect escort kept up with me with no apparent effort... the little so-and-sos must have belonged to the Gallopfreyan Olympic Aerial Acrobatic Team!
“If you didn't mess with their nest, Genius, we wouldn't be in this mess!” I tossed over my shoulder, snapping my eyes back forward as the Doctor's voice rang out plaintively behind me.
“It was an accident! If Augments weren't so quick to resort to force we'd still be safe... ouch!”
“You sawed-off little...!” I dodged around a tree. “If I could get my hooves on you I'd use you as a flyswatter to take out the whole damn swarm! Serve you righ- yeow!”
My good luck ran out in mid-tirade. I'm more than twice as tall as the Doctor so I towered above the undergrowth. I couldn't see where I was putting my hooves! The first log I ran into must have been in an advanced state of decomposition because I pulverized it as my booted hoof swept through it. I stumbled, but recovered well enough. The second one, half a second or so later, was made of sterner stuff! My hoof stopped dead like I was trying to drop-kick the planet and I fell face-forward. I threw myself into a credible semblance of a shoulder-roll and sprang back up, my Equestrin body sending me springing into the air like it did back on Earth months earlier. I must have surprised the Kel, though. I plowed through the swarm on my way up, their hard little bodies bouncing off me like meteorites off the hull of the Hermes! Maybe they thought that I'd turned and attacked, maybe they were confused and were wary, maybe I was reading too much into the communal intelligence of the swarm. In any event it seemed to me that they pulled back away for a second to regroup. I would have had more time to think if they didn't already have a boarding party onboard stinging for all they were worth! (Unlike Terrestrial Bees, the Kel can sting over and over again... the little bastards!)
I had less than a second to scan the terrain and get a sense of the surroundings. The ground was sloping downwards to my left and the trees were thicker there. If Gallopfrey was anything like Equestris or Earth, that meant there was a stream or pond was nearby. The water the Doctor was talking about. I hope to Luna that he meant a swimming pool...
My time sense had slowed down in response to my stress levels. I twisted my body to avoid wrapping myself around a tree that happened to intersect the trajectory of my downward arc. I ducked my head under an oncoming limb but still collected a painful scrape as my back grazed the trunk. The Mare in my Head grimly added it to the tally of pain signals she was registering from elsewhere on my back, my neck, my stomach and my exposed breasts.
I pushed off with my right hoof as soon as it hit the ground, adjusting my course to follow the slope down to its terminus with no loss of speed or momentum. I had to cover my nose with one hoof. With perverse precision born of countless generations of adaptation the Kel were insinuating themselves into any and every vulnerable opening they could find. With my other hoof I raked them away from my eyes. I blessed Luna I was at least wearing pants... and damned the Kel as they found my armpits!
Instinct made me want to stop and slug it out with them but intellect forced me on. I ruthlessly squelched my growing panic as I crashed my way down to the dubious safety of the water. On Equestris mean things live in the water that made the Kel look like a soothing caress by comparison!
Just then my arms were tucked in tight to protect my armpits. I didn't have any arms free to steady me so the next obstacle to my hooves pitched me headlong. I tucked my limbs in and rolled downhill like a runaway boulder!
Somewhere on the way down I came into contact with an actual bolder, or a rock, anyway. I heard and felt the crack as entire constellations exploded behind my eyes!
I didn't lose consciousness but I was stunned just enough that I went limp and slid to a stop on my back to fetch up against another tree with my left shoulder. Damn Nature! There's a lot to be said for living in a closed environment!
There are safer ways to navigate a slope but damn few quicker ones, I suppose. I sprang to my hooves again and made off, pausing to kill a few more Kel out of sheer revenge. As I stood and charged off I could see the glint of water under the lowermost branches not a hundred feet away. Safety, I guess.
The Mare in my Head, safe and secure on her Bridge, told me not to be so picky. If I had the time I would have arranged for a swarm of Kel to pop out of the turbolift behind her. As it was I sent her a nasty note across her boards an I proceeded at maximum Warp toward the shore.
I couldn't have gotten there faster if I'd teleported! Yet, for all my urgency, I skidded to a stop on the muddy bank. All my years on Equestris just wouldn't let me jump in. I just couldn't!
The Mare in my Head called me... among other things... an idiot and engaged her manual overrides! I overrode them and offered a compromise. I would go in to a depth of about one foot and start splashing water at them. The water would drive them off sooner or later and besides, it wasn't as if they were gonna kill me with those bitty, little stingers anyway. There couldn't be more than a thousand or so of Kel in the immediate vicinity. Besides, what's mere pain to an Augment?
She pointed out the tally on her Damage Control Display and told me I was being irrational. I told her... in detail... what she could do with her displays and treated her to a quick slide show of all sorts of hostile aquatic critters from Equestrin Gnawers to Denebian Slime Devils to Terran Leeches and backed up my argument with a surge of pure, primal fear that threatened to overload her displays! When she called me 'suboptimal' the metaphorical gloves came off!
It was not my most rational moment, I'll freely admit, and I'm eternally grateful that the Eugenics Council back home couldn't see me at that moment. But, believe you me, I would have very much stormed a Roamulan bridge armed with a squirt-gun and wearing nothing but the flag of the Federation rather than jump in that water!
Looming threat of Discord or not we might still be debating the point if I didn't hear a noise over the buzzing of the Kel...
“Owowowow! Oof! Ouch!” The Doctor burst free of the undergrowth, coat-tails flapping, his pert bow-tie askew, and a look of unrestrained panic in his wide-open eyes as he pushed off with his hindlegs for that final leap for safety. Only in that split second after being airborne did he see me! The look on his face would have been comical under different circumstances. “Geroni-oh, no!!”
In his defense I imagine that he naturally assumed I'd be diving in headfirst and Discord take the stragglers! But my hooves were planted and I wasn't going to go anywhere! ...Or so I thought.
He caught me full in the face with his chest and momentum did the rest.
As it turned out there was a drop-off close to the shore... of course!
I toppled over backwards into nearly ten feet of cold, murky water. I heard the splash and felt the wet darkness cover me. Every scrap of Eugenic self-control vanished faster than Tyllae hunting down a fresh cookie! The frigid swirl of the water against my exposed skin was the flick of the fins of every water-loving horror every worlds of the Federation had to offer slickly darting in to investigate the morsel that had come its way! Aquatic weed trailed along my back and all I could imagine were the tentacles of Centauri Hydras, octopus arms or swarms of lampreys. It was dinner time and my name was 'entrée'!
I screamed under water and shoved the struggling Doctor away from me with all my strength... launching the hapless Timelord straight out of the water like a ballistic missile from an old-style submarine! I screwed my eyes shut and lashed out in all directions, Earth Pony enough even in that state of mind to make whatever ate me sorry it tangled with an Equestrin!
It couldn't have been more than a few seconds but it felt like an eternity, thrashing the cold water into foam with all the, pardon the expression, horsepower I could pack with each punch! I was beginning to run out of air when I realized I was standing on the bottom. I stood, preparing to jump for the surface.
My Equestrin physiology makes it impossible for me to swim. I'm far denser than water and there's just no way to displace enough of it to allow me to swim in the conventional sense. My only hope was to get my head out far enough to get a bearing on the nearest land and walk out, hopping up for a breath every couple of steps and hoping to Luna I didn't run into a deep spot! I straightened up for that jump and my head burst through the surface like Ponyzilla getting reading to teach Nip-Pon a lesson in humility in one of those Luna-awful movies in Sunny's collection.
I wished I had a thick rubber suit of my own just then! The Kel were on me in an instant, landing on my muzzle stinger-first, apparently and getting tangled in my mane to burrow through to my scalp even as they drowned. These guys were even more suicidal than Roamulans!
I ducked my head and scraped them off my face and out of my mane. I went to take a step and was horrified by the amount of force it took to lift my hoof. The bottom was soft and I was on the verge of getting stuck in it! Visions of quicksand and bottomless ooze sent a chill through me keener than the frigid water that had me in its icy touch.
I pulled a hoof free, the action driving the other one deeper into the muck. I wrenched that one free with a terrifying effort and raised my head for another breath. The shore was maybe two yards away and I was in water up to my throat. If I could get one hoof on it I'd make it back even if I had claw my own personal landing ramp out of it and to Hell with the Kel!
My head broke water again but this time I came up flinging sheets of water with my hooves. Unless those bugs had aqualungs they were gonna be out of luck. I was going to make it! I could keep them at bay until they gave up and I'd be safe. I had a plan with a reasonable chance of success and I squelched my fear far down within me. Don't think about the water, don't think of what's living there. Just forge on! Six or seven feet and I'd be safe. Home free!
I took a step, this time keeping my head above water while doing my impression of a localized tsunami with my hooves. The waters splashed, the Kel buzzed, and I bore resolutely for the bank grinning like a Klingon seeing a helpless enemy. Victory! Take that, Nature!
Something grabbed my mane and tugged, hard! Something scrambled its way across my broad back and wrapped its appendages across my shoulders and under my armpits. Something cold and wet and floppy draped itself over my head!
Just like that Primal Fear surged back! I screamed so loud they must've heard me back on Equestris!
I wrenched my body back and forth, ignoring the Kel and trying to reach whatever had latched onto my back. Augment or not, it's my one vulnerable point. I'm the first to admit, compared to a Terrestrial my body is wide and the space between my shoulders is impossible to reach with my hooves. I just don't bend that way!
I reached up to yank whatever covered my face away. I pulled with everything I had and it began to give. It was attached to whatever grabbed me but it was coming off! If it was part of whatever bloodthirsty critter that had me that was just too bad! It was slippery and thin, some sort of membranous webbing used by some Gallopfreyan sea monster to snare its prey no doubt. This monster was going to need plastic surgery by the time I got done with it! One more savage tug and it came free... and I found myself staring stupidly at the Doctor's long coat!
He'd clambered onto my back, of course, after grabbing a mouthful of my mane to pull himself close enough. I'd dislodged him by yanking the coat over his head and just then he was pony-paddling frantically behind me.
I whirled around, sending up a sheet of water to add to the anger of the Kel, and grabbed him by his skinny neck. I let him have it with every decibel I could muster!
“WHY WOULD YOU SHOVE ME INTO THE WATER, YOU FRIGGIN' MENACE? YOU... YOU ONE-PONY DISASTER AREA! I'M NOT SURPRISED YOU DESTROYED THIS PLACE! YOU PROBABLY BLEW THE DAMN PLANETARY POWER GRID TRYING TO CHANGE A LIGHT PANEL!!! I SHOULD'VE LET YOU GO ALONE TO THE DAMN KLINGONS! TEN SECONDS ONBOARD AND THEY'D BE SO MUCH SPACE DUST! HOW IN THE NAME OF SWEET SUFFERING LUNA DID YOU MANAGE TO LIVE TWO THOUSAND YEARS ANYWAY? YOU MUST HAVE NINE LIVES!!!”
As far a sonic assaults go it must have really been something! Not one Kel came near us the whole time I had him in my clutches... blown out of the air by the shockwave, doubtless. The Doctor didn't fare much better. His ears were blown back, his sodden mane streamed away from his panicked face with its bugged out eyes and his bedraggled bow tie on its false collar gave up the ghost and hung limp. It would have fallen off entirely if it hadn't been bunched up in my hooves!
My hooves... Only when the Doctor scrabbled at them with his own did I realize just how tight I was gripping him in my panic. Without further ceremony I let him go and he dropped out of sight. By the time he came gasping to the surface I'd retrieved the coat and draped it over us as a bug shelter. It had been what he was doing in the first case, of course. I held it up to give him breathing room. I could feel the Kel swarming onto the outside but their stingers couldn't penetrate its surface, thank goodness.
It was dark in there and I wondered if the Timelord would be able to see how ashamed and embarrassed I was.
Taking the Kel out of the immediate situation, or at least postponing them, brought my emotional state below critical mass. I was trembling at the thought of being up to my clavicle in alien water with Luna-knows-what swimming in it but at least I was back in control.
The Doctor coughed and tossed his head to get his mane out of his eyes. “... Help!” He shouted.
I got one arm under him just behind his forelegs and supported him. He hung limp in my grasp.
“I've got you, Doc. What's wrong?”
“What?” He shook his head and rubbed both his ears. “You'll have to speak up... just not quite so loudly! My word! Just like that one and only time I had a front row seat at the Disaster Area concert! Are my ears bleeding?”
“I can't tell, it's too dark.” I ramped my voice up a few decibels and continued. “What's wrong? Are. You. Hurt?”
The Timelord shook his head. “I can just barely swim. Haven't had much call to practice in this form, you see. Thank you, by the way!” He treated me to a happy-go-lucky smile as he took in our surroundings.
“Well here we are! Safe and sound in the end, eh?”
I had to force myself to keep my voice below a bellow!
“Safe? You call this safe??? All we have between us and ten thousand pissed-off bugs is this cockamamie coat, I'm up to my neck in ice water, and...” I stopped short as I felt something brush past my knees. Something else touched my belly! I became aware of movement in the water around me...
“Something just touched me! Several somethings!” I hissed. I tensed reflexively, squeezing the hapless Timelord to me.
“Oof! Steady on! I'm rather fond of breathing you know!”
“Doctor!” It took all I had to stay calm, believe me! “There's something in the water with us!” I gasped and stiffened as something ticked the small of my back.
“I daresay there is.” The Doctor retorted. “This is a working environment, after all! Life is everywhere! Nothing to worry about! Probably minnows or some such. You were kicking up the bottom quite a bit a moment ago. Stirred up a lot of food off the bottom that the local fish are taking advantage of, I should think! Good grief, My Dear, haven't you ever gone wading in a steam before? I seem to recall that there was a fair amount of open water on Equestris. Less than Dear Old Gallopfrey but still a respectable amount.”
“Listen, Genius!” I squirmed him around in my grip enough to get muzzle-to-muzzle and glared into his eyes! “If you'd ever been down to the surface you'd know that the water on Equestris is chock-full of very carnivorous life-forms that love Equestrin meat! I know Earth has its share of aquatic predators, too! What I need to know... and right now... is what Gallopfrey has swimming around in it!” I gave him just enough of a squeeze to let him know I meant business!
“My Dear Starry-Eyes!” The Doctor chuckled... until I applied a little more pressure. “You needn't worry!” He hastily added. “The deadliest thing you'll find here is a lost fishing hook. We'll be fine!” I kept locking eyes with him.
“Honestly! We will! Trust me! I know the wildlife of my own world!”
“Oh, yeah!” I snorted. “You're a real Genius all right!”
“I do wish you'd let that go already.” He said peevishly. “After all I'm not the 'Science Officer'” He lifted his hooves to make air quotes. “That decided to massacre a member of a distraught hive!”
“You didn't get stung in the boobs, either! Let me stick one of the little bastards on your tender bits and see what your reaction is! And who made them 'distraught' in the first place, Genius?”
“Now see here, My Dear Girl...!” The Timelord took a deep breath and continued in a much quieter voice. “Starry. I'm truly sorry about how this came about. I appreciate your state of hydrophobia but there really wasn't anything else for it. There just wasn't anywhere else to get away from them, now wasn't there? I promise you that you needn't be so frightened. It will be all right. You don't have to tremble like that!”
“On top of everything else, Genius,” I said coldly. “ I'm freezing. Equestris is about fifteen degrees warmer than Earth or Gallopfrey. If we don't get away from these damn bugs in the next five minutes I'm going ashore to have it out with them one way or another. And as much as I'd enjoy using you as a flyswatter I'm going to leave you in the shallows. Go find Sunny and Ditzy maybe they'll be able to come up with something... or at least treat me for an overdose of Kel venom.” I smiled grimly. “Unless you have a better idea.”
“Poor, poor Starry-Eyes.” He said tenderly. “Are all Equestrins so fatalistic, I wonder? Never count your friends out, My Dear! And, current events nonwithstanding, I am your friend. Even more, I'm The Doctor... and I have a plan!”