Our Little Homeworld

by Horizon Runner

2.3: The End of Silence

Date: 1/22/1216 KDS.

Time: 3:01 PM.

Location: Surface Shuttle Terminal F, Scaffold, Kharequus Orbit.

Mothership Location: Hoorsuk Orbit.

Applejack closed her eyes, and breathed out a long gush of air.

"So what you're tellin' me," she said, opening her eyes to meet the poor filly running the ticket counter, "is that we're stuck?"

"Yeah, 'fraid so. Nothing to be done, ma'am," the young mare said, smiling as best she could. She leaned, hooves on the counter, shoulders pressed back. Bags hung under her eyes, but it seemed like she'd started off anxious and been worn down from there, until she'd come down on the side of exhausted where she couldn't manage to be worried anymore. "They're saying the shuttle's power core just… stopped working. The ground crew hasn't heard of anything like it, certainly not on an Ambassador. And on Hiir'Sukat, too, one of the best boats in the fleet." She shook her head. "Complete fluke. And on a day like this…"

Applejack sighed, and returned the smile with a degree of understanding. You didn't blame a farmer when an old hoe finally broke. The mare sagged a little, probably thankful that Applejack wasn't going to yell at her like the last stallion had.

"It's alright, sugarcube," Applejack said. "How long d'you think it'll be?"

"Well, the other shuttles left on time," the mare said, "Which means there aren't… any other shuttles. We'll have to pull one from one of the Watchtowers, which could take…" She paused. "A few hours?" she said, wincing. "Five, give or take?"

Applejack's smile twitched. "Fine."

"The concourses are open to you!" the mare said, offering a weak smile. "And on behalf of the Scaffold I offer our sincerest apologies, and—" she turned, her horn flashing as she pulled open a drawer in her round desk. "—A discount," she finished, floating a white card out to Applejack. "Food is free, fifty-percent off everything else."

Applejack's hoof caught the card, and she slipped it deftly into her saddlebag, next to her passport with the teardrop-and-star of Somtaaw on the side. "Much appreciated," she said, nodding, and let the next pony in the line move up to the desk.

She made her way back through the seats, nearly tripping over half a dozen pieces of stray luggage. There were a lot of ponies here, crammed into the little terminal. Pegasi, unicorns, earth ponies. Some kiithid Applejack had never heard of, some she had.

She'd been to airports before, of course. But mostly it'd been the main one in Khontala, and mostly it'd been to pick other folks up. She'd spent most of her life in the Khontala valley, and she was perfectly happy with that, thank-you-very-much. Sure, there were certainly things worth visiting, and things worth doing other places, but she was a farmer. She had her job. Her family's job, which was to feed her kiith. Other ponies could deal with the rest of the world.

But certain ponies had other ideas. Because everything had to be complicated, didn't it, Mac? Couldn't just settle in like the rest of us, no, you had to read all them books, get all antsy and fill out an application, didn't you?

It wasn't fair, it wasn't right. Not on any level. She knew she wasn't any less to blame for all this—it took two to have an argument, unless you were nuttier than a corn squirrel—but still. Their family had kept its place in the world by being too sand-damned stubborn to move. Losing two parents in a year had been hard, but they'd pulled through by holding onto who they had left. Now… Granny was getting too old to head the family these days. The rest of the relatives were spread out, across the valley and elsewhere, with little stake in the old homestead or the old traditions. Applejack didn't have any kids—didn't have the time or the inclination for it, really—and Mac was leaving. It might be dramatic to say the family was falling apart… but damn it! The Apple family was falling apart!

Applejack resisted the temptation to kick the next saddlebag that tried to trip her. Getting angry at some random stranger's luggage wouldn't do anypony any good. She'd figure something out, maybe see if any of the cousins were interested in coming back to help look after the farm. Maybe hire some folks. It'd been too much work for two ponies, much less one, but as long as she could keep the farm running, she had the feeling everything else would be okay. Or at least manageable.

Applejack's thoughts jarred to a halt as her eyes fell on two empty seats.

"Aw heck," she muttered. Apple Bloom was gone. Of course she was gone. Never expect a filly to sit still.

She scanned around the room, and quickly spotted her sister. She was sitting in a circle with a few other foals, mostly fillies. A smile was on her face, which was all the reassurance Applejack needed. These days, she didn't have the power in her bones to not trust Apple Bloom to live her own life, and Apple Bloom seemed to like it best when there was a little space in the family. Nothin' wrong with that. It'd been how Applejack liked it too, back when she'd been younger.

Apple Bloom laughed at something one of the fillies said, and started talking real fast. Applejack smiled and took her seat.

It'd be a little while longer before they had to leave. No sense in interrupting the kids. Let 'em have their day.

She tilted her hat down over her face. She closed her eyes.

And far below, the world spun on, lost seconds falling away as the future rushed on in.

Time: 3:01PM.

Location: Fighter Alpha-Two, Secured Against Khar-Selim Upper Hull.

It'd been a railgun slug. Dash was almost sure of it.

The shot had almost missed, slipping between the sensor masts instead of slamming into the hull five meters away. It would have gone through perfectly, but at the last moment it clipped the base of one of the towers, a tall grey spine with a wide, flat dish spreading out from the top.

The tower hadn't taken this well. From the way it now lay bent, it seemed like the force had snapped it back so hard that it'd smashed against the hull—shattering the dish—and rebounded, twisting and shearing against its mounting until it came to rest nearly perpendicular to the Khar-Selim's hull, connected to the rest of the ship only by a knot of twisted metal.

Dash had been staring past it for twelve minutes now. She'd had plenty of time to work out how it might have happened.

Her head snapped up as one of the alien ships passed. It was hard to get a good look with the angle and the light, but the profile looked a bit like one of those Ambassador shuttles. Round and stubby, with two engines on the back belching yellow plasma. Not white like the Arrows, or any other pony ship for that matter. Probably some significance to that, but Dash had no idea what. Something chemical, maybe. The scientists would know.

The ship slowed, tiny white jets of reaction gas spitting from the front. This close, Rainbow could make out a pattern on its grey hull—yellow stripes, jagged and feral. It pivoted, and the cockpit glared down at her, jet black glass ribbed with a rollcage of dirty-grey steel.

And below that, a huge rotary cannon. Dash felt her chest contract.

A light switched on, mounted next to the cannon. The dust in the space between them outlined the beam, a cone of light which cast a shining disc—on the Khar-Selim's hull, twenty feet from Dash's ship. She didn't breathe as the light swept across the comms towers, lingering on the more intact structures and casting wild shadows over the hull.

There'd been just barely enough space between the antennae to land her ship. It'd taken some careful moves to get the Arrow under the broken sensor mast, but the payoff was worth it—with her systems mostly offline, Dash's Arrow was just another piece of scrap wedged into the wrong place. Unless, of course, the aliens looked too closely.

This one didn't. After a moment of blood-freezing tension, the spotlight switched off. The alien ship pivoted again and kicked itself off towards the front of the ship. Reaching another point of interest, it turned and switched on its light again.

It reminded Dash of the tuura that circled over recent battlefields, waiting to see if any of the dead would go unburied, picking at corpses to make sure they were truly dead before calling their comrades over to begin the feast.

She craned her neck further, spotting three more trails rolling through the dust in the distance. They didn't seem to be in formation. The motions were chaotic, but not quite random. Dash leaned forward in her harness, squinting as two of the trails got closer.

They were the same type as the first. They arced down and skimmed the Khar-Selim's hull, moving within meters of one another. Then, one kicked its RCS jets, and slammed into the other.

Dash's jaw dropped.

The other recovered fast, using its own jets to recover its heading—and then some. The fighters collided again, sparks exploding from the point of impact. The first fighter careened off, then started rolling on its center axis. The other followed suit, and the two ships shot on past Dash and down out of her point of view.

Well, at least they weren't disciplined. If one of the squadmates had pulled something like that on sortie, Spitfire would've had them cooked for dinner. Then again, these guys probably didn't think this was a combat zone. It all looked pretty quiet, right now.

Until suddenly it didn't.

Something white flashed past the two alien ships, which stopped their dance and tracked it. A yellow streak followed the white—and Dash's stomach dropped through her hooves as she realized what was happening.

She started hitting switches. The moment her comms were on, a sea of noise filled her helmet.

"—hit on my sensor tower! Got no targeting! Need cover!"

"...Vaan'ai; ai nan—"

"Alpha! Move, move, move! Soarin, GO! Escape is your priority! Everypony else, cover his tail!"

Dash's engines came online. She lunged forward.

Part of her ship caught on the shattered comms dish and twisted her hard to port, before the inertial dampening spell had come fully online. The impact slammed Dash against her harness, blowing the air out of her lungs. She gasped, and shook her head, scanning her instruments.

Her docking clamps were reading as damaged, and Dash could feel a bruise forming on her side. Stupid, but she'd gotten lucky this time. She forced her breathing to a measured rate. Focus.

There were six hostiles. Five were fighters like the ones she'd already seen—twin-engined, one gun, lozenge profile. One was bigger, the farthest contact from her. It was at the edge of the dust, but it was turning. From the size and the way it was turning towards the fight, Dash hazarded a guess that they were looking at some kind of gunship.

Then again, these were aliens. Better to assume that the ship was bad news and leave it at that.

On the pony side, things were looking grim. Soarin was bolting—trailing smoke, but stable enough to fly. Two fighters were chasing him, but they were losing ground, and at that range he was easily dodging their fire. He was the best off.

Spitfire had pulled two fighters into a turning fight. Somehow, she was apparently holding her own, though Dash had no idea how long that could last. Thunderlane's fighter was powered up, but he was apparently stuck against the Khar-Selim, unable to escape.

The last of the alien fighters had turned, and was arcing around the ship, trying to get a shot at him.

"...ai nan-steniir…"

It was an easy decision to make, really. Spitfire and Soarin could fly. They could hold their own. Thunderlane wasn't so lucky at the moment. Dash winged her ship around and bolted towards the target. "Thunder!" she shouted into her comms, then forced her voice down. Shouting wasn't going to help anything. "I'm covering you. Focus on getting off the ground."

Thunderlane's voice came through strained. "Roger, Dash. Hurry."

She saw it through the canopy. The fighter's hull flashed silver as it caught the light, already spinning on its jets to try and face her. She didn't give it the chance. She clicked the trigger, and felt her ship hum as the guns spun to life.

Her shots hit just starboard of the enemy cockpit. Some glanced off into the dust, but a few chewed into the hull, finding one of the fighter's vernier thrusters. An explosion lit the side of the ship, and it spun off out of view.

"Vaan'ai; ai nan-steniir…"

Dash checked her radar. Soarin was out of the dust and roughly on-course for the Mothership—impressive, considering he was eyeballing it. His pursuers were breaking off, too slow to catch up and too committed to their course to come back and rejoin the fight. Spitfire, on the other hand, was still dancing with her new friends.

Thunderlane pulled free of whatever had him trapped, and Dash didn't waste a second. "Thunder, on me," she said, even as she spun her ship around. "Boss! We're headed your way."

"...ai nan-heniim…"

"Roger!" Dash couldn't tell whether that had been Spitfire or Thunderlane. Possibly both. Didn't matter.

It was funny, from a distance, how slow the dogfight seemed. Still, as Dash got closer she came to an inevitable and unsurprising conclusion:

Spitfire was an absolute badass.

The two alien fighters were obviously being piloted by creatures that knew their way around 3D combat. They spun, weaved, danced, firing in bursts every time they thought they might have a shot on Spitfire's fighter. It was beautiful piloting, no question. Enemies they might be, they were bucking good.

But every time it seemed like they had her locked in, Spitfire was just ahead of them, just a little too fast or a little too slow for them to catch her out. It wasn't sustainable, it wasn't going to win her the fight, but she was unscathed.

And in doing this, she'd given the two bastards tunnel vision. They were so focused on killing that one annoying little bird that they didn see Dash coming until she opened fire.

The shot hit dead center on the cockpit, and shattered the canopy. The second, third, and fourth shots poured through, ripping through glass and hull and touching off the magazine below. Debris pinged off Dash's hull as she shot past.

"Target down," Dash called. On her sensors, the other ship winked out of existence, following its comrade.

"Target down!" Thunderlane called. "Orders, boss?"

"...ai nan-heniim…"

Dash glanced at her sensors. The largest target was breaking off, heading for the dust. She wheeled her fighter around and tried to spot it, but she could only see a faint dark shape at the edge of the clearing, shrinking to nothingness.

Spitfire responded, her voice strangely cold. "We leave. Soarin will be in contact with the Mothership by now. We need to get back, debrief, and get our next orders. Form up and clear the dust."

They flew, but as they left the rings, Dash spared a glance back towards the battle site. She switched her sensors to topographic, overlaying all the large objects in her view with orange wireframe. The wounded ship, the one Dash had saved Thunderlane from, was gone. The other two drifted silently beside the Khar-Selim.

She saw her kill. The explosion had taken its head off, engines and hull ending at a ragged wound, quickly cooling as residual heat bled off into space. There was no sign of a corpse—the pilot, if there had been one, was almost certainly incinerated when their ammunition blew. Thunderlane's kill was much the same, truncated a little further forward. Both drifted beside the Khar-Selim, and like tiny mirrors of the shredded science ship.

In all likelihood, they'd drift together forever, or at least until they fell into the planet's atmosphere and were lost forever.

It was a kind of cremation, a kind of burial… but not the proper kind.

"Boss," Dash said, on-comms. "Those ships we shot down…"

She trailed off into silence. Thunderlane might not get it, but she knew Spitfire understood. She was Sobani, after all, and while Dash couldn't claim to be the most religious pony in the world… this was important.

"Vaan'ai…" the ghost ship droned on. "Ai nan-heniim…"

Then Spitfire began broadcasting on an open channel. Her voice was different, softer than it'd been before. Then a commander, now a priest. In Soban, the two roles often overlapped.

"To the souls slain here today, unburied, we commend your bravery and your honor. Know that, though we know not your names, we will remember you."

She paused. Traditionally, the prayer should close with Celestiia keersaf se'traiim. Celestia guard your path.

"May your gods watch over you, whoever they might be," Spitfire said.

She closed the channel, and the squad left the dust and began the long flight home.

And in Dash's ears, the signal slowly faded down to static.

"Vaan'ai; ai nan-steniir… Vaan'ai; ai nan-heniim… Vaan'ai……… Vaan'ai……………..Vaan'ai……………………..."

Author's Note:

Sorry this one's so short! It was about three times as long, but I ended up cutting a lot of stuff away. Perhaps not the best-proofread of any of my chapters, but I've been getting antsy not having published anything in so freaking long. I don't even want to do the math on how long I have to go at this rate. The good news is, a lot of the stuff I cut from this chapter will work for the next ones, so hopefully that'll speed things up a bit. But, I've said such before, and I think I've well proven myself to be a liar by this point.

In any case, thank you for reading as always!

Comments

[Starlight Nova]

In what chapter to the innuendo, implications, and discussion start?

[PostPony]

I can say that I was pretty happy to see this.

[Durnstaros]

Very good, looking forward to seeing how this plays out, and everyone's' reactions once the Turanic carrier shows up!

[Numinos]

Urgh, why is this crossover is working so well...
I know that chances are slim, but I'll be having some hope for continuation. Amazing story.

So sad...