Our Little Homeworld

by Horizon Runner

1.5: Healer

Date: 2/11/1215 KDS. An Ordinary Day, One Year Ago.

Time: 5:10 P.M. Tiir/Scaffold Standard Time.

Mothership Position: Docked to Scaffold, Kharequus Geostationary Orbit. Under Construction.

Location: Scaffold Transit Tunnel F-9.

Scaffold transit tunnel. Pedestrian, mostly, with a two-lane road through the middle for transport trucks and other vehicles. I’m walking along the side, thinking about the taste of the air, how it’s got a metallic tang to it. Don’t like it. Never liked the smell of metal. Not that the sand back home is much better; grass is a rare commodity, even in the Paktu States.

Carrying groceries from the commissary, heading back to the dormitories. Day’s been going well. No medical emergencies since Sea Swirl collapsed last week. Turned out to be pregnant, and she had to go back to her home in Naabal. Sad, but can’t have foals on the Mothership. Colony would be no environment for children, not at first, anyway. It was go back or have an abortion, and Sea Swirl could never do that. I know it’s her choice, but it made me happy. She’d always said she wanted a child, after all.

Mind wandering. Normal. Smiling to self.

Mare coming towards me from down the street. Recognize her, but can’t put a name to her face. She’s carrying groceries too, happy. She waves to me, and we stop to chat. The whole time I’m trying to remember her name, smiling and laughing quietly at her jokes. They’re not that funny, but somehow the fact that I can’t quite remember her name makes it something I can laugh at. I shrink away, as usual, but I don’t run or anything. It’s… nice.

There’s a bus coming along. Don’t pay it any mind. Buses on the Scaffold are for the older ponies or the ones who have a disability. Or the ones who are too tired or lazy for a bit of a walk. Not for me.

Then somepony screams. I whip around. It’s a pony hanging from the bus window. He’s bleeding badly from a cut on his neck. His mane is a mess, caked in blood that isn’t all his. He screams again, and this time I can tell he’s saying words.

“A bomb!” he says. “Get back! There’s a bomb on the bus!”

Then everything gets bright. Then it gets loud. Then it gets hot.

And then everything gets dark, quiet, and cold, as if Celestia turned off the sun in the desert.

Can’t see anything. Can’t really feel, aside from a dull throb throughout my body. Sounds swimming about like I’m underwater. Eyes open and all I can see are flames and chaos. Ponies running. Ponies bleeding. Ponies dying. The on-duty paramedics and firefighters are already galloping to the scene. The automated traffic barriers have blocked the site off.

Lying on my side. Something heavy on my ribs, making it hard to breathe. Try to push it off, feel warmth. Softness. It’s a body.

Her name... her name is Green Fields. She was in my anatomy class, and she always made fun of the teacher, who was her cousin. She failed the class, but passed it the next time she took it. She was always nice to me, fought off that stallion who kept coming after me when I went to my dorm. Treated her briefly while working as a nurse when she came in to a the hospital after a fall that broke her leg. Was exhausted myself, didn’t recognize her at the time, was confused when she said my name. Saw her at the entrance exam for the Mothership’s crew. Spoke to her afterwards. She told me that Equestria had been in her dreams, that she wanted to go there more than anything.

She jumped between me and the bus. She saved my life.

Push her off as gently as I can. Try to stand, but stagger. Head spinning. Probably concussion, may be serious. Should lie still, but don’t. Want to help. Not carrying my medical supplies, off duty, but I can still treat her. Scraps of grocery bags as makeshift bandages,

Look at her, and know it’s probably too late. Breathing ragged, side bloody. Ears bleeding, probably ruptured by the blast. Eyes closed tight. Severe pain. Can’t tell exactly where she’s hurt, but it’s bad, and it’s inside.

The paramedics grab us, pull me away from her. One checks her, says it’s too late.

Try to break free, get to Green Fields. Paramedics loading her onto a stretcher, trying to get me to calm down.

I scream her name, and she opens her eyes. She smiles.

And like that, she’s gone. Somepony I once knew, snuffed out like a candle in a sandstorm.

The alarm clock rang.

Date: 1/21/1216 KDS

Time: 8:13 P.M.

Mothership Position: Kharequus Geostationary Orbit, Scaffold Area.

Location: Security barracks C-2, Fluttershy’s Quarters.

It was the same dream she’d been having for months. It was almost a cruel joke, as if her mind insisted on reminding her what happened, as if it wasn’t already seared into her memory like the shrapnel from that bus had been seared into Green Fields.

She slowly edged her way out of bed, leaving the covers behind. She stumbled her way over to the washroom and got a look at her face. There were big dark rings under her eyes, and as usual she used makeup to hide them. At the end, she almost looked normal, but she couldn’t force herself to smile. It had been a while since she could force herself to smile.

It had been unfair. No pony had ever thought that terrorists were fair, but to her it seemed even less so. Thirty ponies had died because of that bomb, and over five dozen more were injured. She’d been right at ground zero, and she’d come out alive. Green Fields had died before they even got her into the ambulance. The ponies on the bus had been vaporized, including the pony who’d set the bomb—a religious fanatic from kiith-Gaalsi who’d masqueraded as a low-clearance technician. She knew it was survivor’s guilt; that she should be thankful that Celestia had spared her, but that line of thinking never seemed to go anywhere pleasant for some reason.

It happened once or twice a year, nowadays. Gaalsieni were caught all the time trying to smuggle things onto the Mothership or the Scaffold, ranging from fireworks and homemade pressure-cooker bombs to military grade plastic explosives and hoofcannons concealed within prosthetic limbs. Occasionally, one or two would get through, and the newspaper headlines would turn another sixty deaths into a statistic.

Some called it “The Second Heresy War,” and while the Daiamiid refused to acknowledge that Gaalsien attacks were anything more than a nuisance, the ponies on the Mothership and Scaffold had grown accustomed to the idea that at any moment their lives would have to stop as a terror alert went out and the doors all sealed. The Jump couldn’t come fast enough.

Fluttershy finished making herself feel presentable and trotted out of the room. There were other members of the security force in the common room, but she passed them by. A few glanced her way, but said nothing. Everypony in security knew her story; she was the little pegasus who didn’t die when the reaper came for her. Some pitied her for living through such a traumatic event, and others feared her for exactly the same reason. Both were attitudes she hated, though she’d never do more than lower her eyes and maybe smile. Just like mother taught. Don't speak up unless spoken to. Don't bother others with your foalish little problems.

She caught sight of a stallion—a face she hadn’t seen before—moving towards her despite the hissed warnings from a mare she recognized as Cinder Storm, part of the engineering decks’ security team. She quickened her pace, trying to make it to the door before he could catch up with her. She could see the words in his eyes: “I heard about what happened. I’m sorry. Are you all right?”

Meaningless niceties, maddening things. She knew that she looked “broken”, and that for a lot of stallions—and for more than a few mares—she evoked an almost instinctual romantic protectiveness, like some kind of idealized fictional character. The idea that all she needed was somepony special to “fix” her drove her crazy, and the not-so-subtle offers only made things worse.

She came through the door faster than she’d intended and bumped straight into Snowflake. The shock nearly sent her tumbling, but her wings shot out to maintain her balance. At least they were good for that much.

Snowflake didn’t look like a pony. He was so big, so heavily muscled, and so conventionally unattractive that he’d been compared to a giant sand-boar which had come in contact with a speeding Baserunner. His tiny wings—symptomatic of his aero-achondroplasia, colloquially known as Thinfeather’s Disease—had earned him more than his fair share of scorn—until he turned to bodybuilding as a hobby, of course. His red eyes and white coat gave him a strange, almost eerie appearance, and the fact that his most common expression was a brutish leer didn’t exactly help his chances with the mares.

That all said, he was one of Fluttershy’s closest friends.

Their eyes met, and Fluttershy’s gaze flicked back to her pursuer. Snowflake nodded curtly and shifted to block the door as she resumed her escape. As she left, she could hear his baritone voice, probably explaining for the thousandth time that she just wanted to be left alone.

She bit her lip but didn’t look back.

Even her daily routine had become a race to escape the attentions of others. Sometimes, she wished that it had been her who had died on that stretcher.

Time: 8:29 P.M.

Location: Mothership Medbay MD-6.

Aside from dealing with terrorist threats and the aftermath thereof, security ponies didn’t have much of a job, and security medics were even less in demand. Fluttershy usually made herself useful by assisting in one of the medbays—typically Redheart’s.

It was… okay. The worst they ended up treating were typically broken limbs from when somepony fell off a catwalk in the engineering sections, or electrical burns from when somepony accidentally stuck their hoof against a live wire. Even then, the safety spells within the Mothership typically prevented those types of injuries from being too severe.

So it was a shock when she walked in on Redheart frantically setting up a full medical bed with genuine worry in her eyes. Redheart was the kind of pony who managed well as a medical officer; impatient with incompetence or troublemaking, but with more than enough kindness and gentleness to care for her patients. She looked—as one of her more dramatic patients had put it—like a messenger from Celestia, with a mane of perfect pink and a coat so white it glowed.

But she didn't often look worried. When she did, it meant that something was wrong. Terribly wrong.

“Fluttershy!” Redheart said, waving her over. “Gonna need your help. A pilot’s on her way up now, and she’s in a bad way.”

“W-what?” Fluttershy gasped. Pilots didn’t get injured often. In fact, the only time a pilot had been injured in recent memory, the injury had been so far beyond fatal that there wasn’t anything left to autopsy.

Redheart was clearly fully aware of how bad this situation could be. “Yeah, it’s a bit above our usual workload. Get me an IV stand. Now.”

Fluttereshy rushed to the supply closet and started pulling supplies with shaking hooves. When she came back, a pony was wheeling in the stretcher.

She was in bad shape. Anypony could tell that, but to someone with medical training it was a lot worse. She was sweating, obviously feverish. There was a head injury, probably a concussion. The burns around her wing-joints were the first clue to the underlying problem; magic burnout. The fact that the burns were still audibly sizzling was far scarier: Not only had she burned out, she was still burning out. That… really wasn’t supposed to happen.

“Good thing they got her to me when they did,” Redheart murmured as she fussed over the injured pony. “Crap. Worse than I thought.”

Fluttershy brought over the IV stand and Redheart started hooking it up. “Thanks, Fluttershy. Bring me a syringe. Five CCs of ATR-20.”

Fluttershy’s mouth dropped open, and she sprinted to the dispenser.

The actual medical use of drugs like ATR-20 was rare. Beyond rare for anypony but unicorns with serious health conditions. They were a last resort for when magic was completely out of control, shutting down the pony’s leyline networks and thus any use of a horn or or wings. The only time Fluttershy had seen them pulled out was when a unicorn had suffered a head injury and been unable to stop levitating things. Mostly, they were used in maximum-security prisons to keep strong unicorns from teleporting away or melting their cell doors.

She supposed it made sense: This pony’s magic was damaging her nerves every second. She needed to come down as soon as possible, or she might suffer a lot worse than burnout. She probably would suffer worse than burnout, regardless. They just hadn’t gotten to her fast enough.

Fluttershy frantically activated the dispenser and ordered the medicine, beating her wings to slow herself down as she rushed back and gave it to Redheart.

Redheart poked the needle deftly into the patient’s arm and pressed the plunger. “If she’d gotten here ten minutes later, I wouldn’t have been able to do a thing.”

“Is… is this even treatable?”

“Don’t know. Never seen anything like this.” Redheart wiped a hoof across her brow and set to hooking up various medical monitors. “It’s like her magic is deliberately trying to kill her. Doesn’t make sense. Shouldn’t be possible. But it’s sure what it looks like.”

“Will… she be okay?”

“Now?” Redheart checked her instruments again, going over the patient’s body with the greatest care. “It looks like she’s stable. Later, I don’t know. She might need to be on magic inhibitors for the rest of her life. I’d say there’s… an eighty-six percent chance she’ll never fly again. Nerve damage. Tissue damage. Even prosthetic wings might not work.”

“Oh… oh, Celestia.” Fluttershy stumbled over to the table, her head swimming in a dull haze. “Oh, Celestia…”

“Nothing we could have done.” Readheart shook her head. “She’ll live. Hurt like Tartarus for a few weeks, and be stuck in bed for a month at least, but she’ll live. Whatever comes after, she’ll be able to walk, talk, do everything a normal earth-pony can. Whether she’ll be able to fly... that’s in Celestia’s hooves now.”

Fluttershy nodded, still in shock. Less than half an hour ago, she’d been worrying about her social life, about ponies hitting on her, about things she still hadn’t gotten over from almost a year ago. They were big things, terribly big. Overwhelming. Crushing.

But this pegasus—a pilot—might never fly again. Fluttershy’s wings twitched at the thought. She wasn’t a flyer by nature, but the idea of being unable to lift off ever again was terrifying. This pony’s career was over. Her life was over.

Time: 10:32 P.M.

Location: Medbay MD-6

Fluttershy stayed at the medical ward for a long while. Technically she wasn’t an authorized part of the medical staff, but Redheart liked her and she had gone through medical school. Besides, most of the medical staff were secondary crew who wouldn’t be coming aboard until the Mothership stopped back at the Scaffold, and Fleet Command didn’t seem to have a problem with her helping. Medbay 6 was the only one operating at full capacity and only just barely, at that.

She learned that the pilot’s name was Lightning Dust, and that she’d done something reckless that brought her own demise on herself. It didn’t really matter to Fluttershy, though. Ponies deserved second chances, and Lightning Dust wasn’t getting one.

It wasn’t long before two of the other pilots came up to the medical bay to check on their comrade. Fluttershy was busying herself with finding the medical records of the pilot and didn’t see them come in, but once she spotted them she stopped dead, frozen in her hoofsteps.

The squad leader was doing most of the talking. She reminded Fluttershy of some of the older ponies in the security team, with really intense, scary eyes and a voice that made you want to huddle in a corner and apologize profusely for things you hadn’t even done. Aside from that she seemed okay, though. She was scary, but she obviously cared a lot about Lightning Dust, even though she was mad.

And then there was the other one.

Oh, the other one.

She had a beautiful, hexachromatic mane, rainbow colored, like the kind of rainbow you sometimes saw over the Majiirian Sea after a big storm, glistening in the sunlight as if to remind you there were great things in the world. Her coat was the color of the open sky, further adding to the image, and her saddened eyes sparkled like rubies in the fluorescent light.

Emotion warred across her face as she stared down at the patient. Scared, uncertain, a little bit afraid. Worried, most definitely. She looked up and met Fluttershy’s eyes for a moment. It was sudden, unexpected, and far from unwelcome. Fluttershy couldn’t bring herself to smile under the circumstances, but she wanted to.

This mare was kind. She cared. She was nice.

She was… no.

She was untouchable. Impossible. An iron vise seemed to clamp down on Fluttershy’s chest.

She lowered her eyes and didn’t look up. She gave Redheart the medical sheets. She told her what she knew and left when Redheart released her. She didn’t meet the beautiful mare’s eyes again. Didn’t say a word.

When she got out of the door, she almost screamed. Almost. So easy, just to let it all go and dissolve into a shivering mess right there.

Instead, she kept quiet. Bottled it all up. Like usual.

She needed something, anything, to occupy her mind.

Her stomach gurgled.

Comments

[mastermenthe]

Neatly applied shipping technique!